The Taming of Billy Jones Read online

  Over by the bed, Jesse was chewing on the bed linens.

  "No, no," Prudence chided. "That is not food."

  He looked up at her, puzzled, then turned to frown at the soggy corner of bed ruffle he held clenched in his plump fist. "Not?"

  She got up and went to him. He dropped the bed ruffle and reached out his arms, his face blooming into one of those smiles that always turned her heart to mush. She bent and scooped him up. "Bedtime for you, mister."

  He made what she thought of as a stinky face, wrinkling his nose and scrunching his eyes shut. "Nawp," he said, as if it were a real word.

  "Yawp," she replied, and carried him downstairs.

  It took about an hour to get him to bed. Jesse liked to have her sing to him and tell him stories before he'd go to sleep. Lots of songs and lots of stories. If she dared to stop before he'd heard enough, he'd start crying. All the books she read said she was just supposed to let him cry, and she knew that Alma always used to get him to go down with a minimum of fuss. But somehow, since Prudence had taken sole charge of his care, bedtimes had become protracted affairs.

  The truth was, she couldn't bear to hear him cry. So she indulged him. So what if the books said she shouldn't? She had the time. And an excess of attention could hardly hurt him.

  Finally, at eight-thirty, Jesse fell asleep.

  A little tired from all the singing and storytelling, Prudence wandered back downstairs and took the casserole out of the oven. It looked a bit dry by then. But she was starved. She ladled a serving onto a plate, dished up some salad and ate.

  Then she put the broccoli, still unsteamed, back in the crisper and cleaned up after the meal. If Billy Jones wanted dinner, he could get it himself.

  But then again, maybe something really had happened to him. She decided to call Delilah's house, where Oggie lived. Maybe somebody there could tell her what had happened to her supposed houseguest.

  Delilah answered on the first ring. She said that Billy had been there briefly that afternoon, searching for Oggie. "Try the Hole in the Wall," Delilah suggested, with the authority of a woman who had grown up with Jones men.

  Prudence did try the bar. The night bartender, Nick Santino, answered.

  "He's in the back room with Oggie and the boys," Nick said. "Been there for hours now."

  "Doing what, may I ask?"

  "Playin' poker, ma'am."

  * * *

  Billy sipped his whiskey as he studied his hand. He shot a glance at the old man.

  The old man was looking back. He pulled out a card and sloughed it. "So. How long you stayin' in town for?"

  Billy sloughed two cards. "Depends." He picked up the two the dealer had laid in front of him.

  Oggie picked up his single card and added it to his hand. "Where you stayin'?"

  "At my son's house."

  "In point of fact, that house belongs to Prudence."

  Billy shrugged.

  "That's a fine house," Oggie declared. "Used to be the Conley house, for years and years. It went to my granddaughter Heather when her first husband, Jason Lee Conley, passed on. A sad story, that was. Barely in his twenties, with his whole life ahead of him. Killed in a landslide, working on a county road. Left poor Heather alone. But not for long. Lucas Drury came for her. You heard of him, ain't you?"

  "Yeah. Writes scary books."

  "Horror novels, son. Horror novels. And now, Heather don't need that fine house anymore. Lucas has built her and their children a big fancy place up on Piety Hill." Oggie puffed on his cigar, making the tip glow read. "So Prudence has bought the Conley place, and brought your son to live there." He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at the end of it. "A nice woman, that Prudence. A woman of heart and grit." He stuck the cigar back between his yellowed teeth. "And she is fine-lookin', too, behind those disagreeable glasses and that scraped-back hair."

  The dealer said, "Dealer takes two," and dealt himself two more cards.

  Oggie arched a grizzled brow and looked straight at Billy. "Don't you think our Prudence is fine?"

  Billy reached for the bottle next to the pile of money on the table. "You in this game or not?"

  Oggie grunted, scowled at his cards and then, finally, placed his bet.

  * * *

  "You want me to get him on the phone for you?" asked Nick the bartender.

  Prudence said, "No, thank you," and hung up.

  She couldn't believe her own foolishness. She'd actually been worried about Billy Jones. Concerned that he'd been injured. That he might be in pain. But no. Bad Billy Jones was feeling no pain. He was playing poker at the Hole in the Wall. With Uncle Oggie. Who ought to know better, at his age.

  I'll make you regret it, if you leave town, he had threatened when she told him she and Jesse were moving here.

  Already, he was proving his point.

  * * *

  The poker game broke up around midnight. Feeling pleasantly plotzed, Billy gathered up his winnings and bought everyone in the house a couple of rounds. He and Oggie stood together at the bar. The old man told a joke or two, then asked Billy if he happened to know that great show tune, "Have Some Madeira, M'dear."

  There was a battered upright piano in the corner. Billy banged out the tune and Oggie playacted the old rake intent on seducing a sweet young thing. Even Rocky, who could barely sit up by then, laughed long and loud. Oggie knew a few other great tunes as well. Billy played some more and the old man performed. The guy was pretty amazing, really. In his eighties at least, and still up for partying hearty till all hours of the night.

  The only sour note in the evening came around twelve-thirty, when one of the old bats Billy had seen crossing Main Street

  when he first hit town came in looking for her husband. The husband's name was Owen. He was one of the men Billy and Oggie had been playing poker with. The old bat's name, as it turned out, was Linda Lou. Linda Lou demanded that Owen come home right now. When the poor man hesitated, she grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward the door.

  Billy, totally by accident, ended up in her path as she dragged her husband out. He moved right back, but still, she shot him a look that would have curdled sweet cream.

  Oggie slapped him on the back. "You should know better than to get in her way."

  "One too many whiskeys," Billy explained. "My reflexes have slowed."

  "Have another," Oggie suggested. "It'll settle your nerves."

  "I believe I will do that," Billy replied.

  Two o'clock came the way it always did: too soon. Billy helped Oggie and Nick close up. Nick drove Oggie home and Billy pretty much carried Rocky to his apartment above the grocery store. And then, since he still felt way too good to be getting behind the wheel of a car, Billy strolled back to Prudence's, which was just around the corner and down the street anyway.

  But then, somehow, he must have ended up on the wrong block. He went in Prue's front gate – he thought. And he went up the walk, which he should have noticed was made of concrete and not slate. The porch looked a little different, too. But by then, he was starting to think about hitting the sack, and not feeling real picky about details. He opened the door and went in.

  He'd turned on a light in the living room and was looking around, trying to figure out where he was, when he heard the screaming. He blinked and turned toward the sound. A tall, skinny woman stood in the hallway that branched off from the far side of the room. She was clutching a blue quilted robe at her neck and wearing a blue hair net on her head.

  "Oh my Lord! Help! Somebody, help me, please!" she screamed. About then, he realized where he'd seen her before: crossing Main Street

  the previous afternoon, along with that other battle-ax, Owen's wife.

  "Help, oh, help me! A murderer! An intruder!"

  Even as drunk as he was, Billy managed to deduce that she wanted help because she was terrified of him.

  "Uh, look." He backed toward the door. "Sorry. So sorry. Big mistake. Leaving now."

  She started running
toward him, still screaming for help, as he got the door open and put it between himself and her. Something crashed against it and shattered; she must have picked up the vase on the side table and thrown it at him. He sprinted off down the walk, kicked the fence open and headed back toward Main.

  A few minutes later, when he went through a second gate, he was more careful to check for familiar objects: the locust tree by the fence, the slate walk, the Adirondack-style porch furniture. Yeah, this was Prue's house. No doubt about it this time.

  The problem came when he tried to open the front door. It was locked. Billy stepped back, puzzled. Then he smiled to himself. Probably she'd left a key under the mat. He bent over, braced himself on the door frame and lifted the thing. Nothing. He took a minute to straighten up again, and then he noticed that the house was really dark. She hadn't left the porch light on.

  Billy started to understand. He'd stayed out later than he should enough nights in his life to know what it meant when a woman didn't even leave the porch light on. It meant a man would have to make a hell of a lot of racket, pounding on the door and shouting – and then maybe, if he got lucky, the woman would have a little pity and let him in. But then again, maybe even a lot of noise and shouting wouldn't work. A man got no guarantees when it came to a woman who didn't leave the porch light on. No guarantees at all.

  But that was all right with Billy. He'd handled situations like this before. He went back down the porch steps and around the side of the house to the window of the room Prue had assigned to him. He had to crush a few bushes to do it, but he got up close enough that he could study the screen, which was hinged at the top and had a hook at the bottom. As luck would have it, the hook wasn't engaged. He lifted the screen and eased it up. Then he slid it sideways and it came right off the hinge. He tossed it behind him, onto the side lawn. Now, for the window. The lock was the old-fashioned kind, a slide latch that anchored the top pane to the bottom one.

  He grinned woozily to himself when he started to shimmy the bottom pane. The house was newly painted, but those windows were old. A few good nudges with the heel of his hand and the latch started to give. He hit the frame again, sharply, and then pushed. The latch slipped completely free and the window slid up.

  "Hah!" he said, but quietly. After all, he knew it was late. He didn't want to wake anyone up. He just wanted a bed to sleep in. He swung his boot over the sill.

  He saw her standing there, a shadow in the doorway, as he slid into the room. She flicked on the light. He groaned as the sudden burst of brightness attacked his eyeballs. Where in holy hell had his sunglasses gone? He'd had them with him earlier – and his hat, too. But he must have left them at one of the Joneses while he was looking for Oggie, because he didn't think he'd been wearing either while he played that poker game.

  After a moment, his poor abused eyes adjusted to the glare. He looked at her, from the bottom up. Her feet were bare. She had long, pale toes. Very nice toes. She wore white pajamas – at least, what he could see of them was white. They disappeared under her white robe, which was belted good and tight around her waist. Her face was pink from sleep. Altogether, she looked better than usual. Her hair helped. She wore it in a braid down her back. Little crinkly red strands of it had gotten loose and stood up around her face. Unfortunately, even in the middle of the night, she had those ugly glasses on – and a snapping-turtle look in her eyes.

  He tried a sheepish grin. "You forgot to give me a key."

  Her mouth was a flat line. "What I forgot to do is to call the sheriff's office and have you arrested."

  He let out a tired breath. "Come on. Lighten up."

  "Breaking and entering. That is what you just did."

  As usual, she was irritating him into sobriety. "What? Is there some curfew around this joint that I should know about?"

  "No, Billy. No curfew. Just common courtesy, that's all."

  He tried to look pitiful. "I was being courteous. I didn't pound the door or shout, did I?"

  "Oh, certainly. You break into my house. But you're quiet when you do it, so it's all right." She had her arms wrapped hard around her middle, as if she was holding her anger in there, good and tight.

  He decided looking pitiful wasn't cutting it. He dropped to the edge of the bed. "There's nothing I hate more than a tight-assed woman, you know that, Prue?"

  "I assume you're referring to me."

  "If the shoe fits—"

  "Oh, stop it. I'm not the issue here, and we both know it. You've been out gambling and drinking till the middle of the night."

  "I surely have."

  "Why?"

  "Because I wanted to."

  "You could have gambled and drank at your club in L.A."

  "I make myself at home wherever I go. I like a good time. And I have a good time."

  She gave him another of those long, mean looks. Then she sighed and shook her head. "I just don't understand."

  "What's to understand?"

  "You said you came here to get to know Jesse." She didn't look mad anymore. She just looked tired. And a little bit sad.

  And all of a sudden, he found he felt about as low as he had that other night, at Bad Billy's, when he'd stolen her glasses and taken down her hair in front of his friends.

  She was leaning against the door frame now. "Billy, there is no point in your being here, if you're just going to run wild in the bar all night long."

  He rubbed his tired eyes and fell back on the bed.

  "Billy…"

  The light fixture overhead had two cut-glass shades shaped like flowers. In the center of the flowers, light-bulbs bloomed. He shouldn't be staring at them, but he was, anyway. The brightness made weird afterimages that floated in a circle around the central blossoms of light. He closed one eye and then the other, causing the afterimages to pop back and forth like the ball at a tennis match.

  "Billy, have you gone to sleep on me?"

  "No. I'm awake. And I did come here to get to know Jesse."

  "Well, then." Her voice had softened. It was almost kind. "When are you going to start doing that?"

  He was still a little drunk, he supposed. The flowers of light kept becoming four, then fading back to just two again.

  "Billy, when are you going to start getting to know your son?"

  "Tomorrow," he said on a heavy exhalation of breath. The flowers of light were fading, moving away.

  She said something else, something quiet and low. But he didn't hear it. The wave of unconsciousness rose up over him. It was taking him under.

  He went with it, murmuring, "Tomorrow, Prue. Hones'. Tomorrow. I will get t' know him. Tomorrow. I will…"

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  When Billy woke, he felt as if someone had freeze-dried his brain. He rolled over and squinted at the little clock radio by the bed: after nine. With a groan, he sat up and pushed back the blanket.

  He hung his head and studied his socks. He was still fully dressed, except for those socks. Even though it hurt to do it, he smiled. Prue had a good heart. She'd pulled off his boots and thrown a blanket over him. Lots of women wouldn't have bothered.

  His stomach felt dangerous. And his head…

  Better get moving. Get some Alka-Seltzer. Pronto.

  He launched himself at the door and stumbled out into the dining room. He saw his kid beyond a low gatelike contraption, sitting on the kitchen floor, chewing on something yellow – a rubber duck or a toy chicken, he supposed. The kid stared at him. He stared back.

  "Oh, Billy." It was Prue, standing beside the kid, sounding very discouraged.

  "Bathroom," he muttered at her shoes, since he couldn't bear to face the disappointment in her magnified eyes.

  She moved forward, unhooked the low gate and pulled it back. "That way." She pointed. He went through, barreling past her, headed for the door she'd indicated. He made it just in time to lose the contents of his stomach in the toilet bowl.

  Even after he rinsed his mouth a
nd splashed cold water on his face, he continued to feel like twenty miles of bad road. He looked in the medicine cabinet: no Alka-Seltzer.

  She knocked on the door. He marched over and yanked it open. "What?"

  She held up a glass filled with water. As he watched, she dropped two white tablets into the glass.

  He took it from her. "Thanks." He shut the door. As he started to drink it down, he heard the phone in the kitchen ringing.

  A few minutes later, he left the bathroom and headed back to bed. Prue was talking on the phone. The kid still sat on the kitchen floor. Now he was gnawing on a piece of biscuit. The kid looked up at him and made a gurgly, friendly, questioning sort of noise. "Awanna?" He held out the gooed-up biscuit.

  Billy shook his head and kept on walking, almost tripping on the gate, which she'd put back across the door to the dining room. Somehow, though, he readjusted his stride for it just in time and managed to get over it. Then he staggered on, through the dining room and back to the bedroom, where he fell across the bed and shut his eyes with a grateful moan.

  But not for long.

  "Billy?" Prue was standing over him shaking him.

  "Uh. Yeah." He opened one eye and looked at her. "Wha'?"

  "That was Jack Roper on the phone."

  The name sounded familiar. But Billy's mind wasn't operating at optimum efficiency. "Jack? Rope?"

  "Jack Roper. He's Oggie's son by a woman he knew before he met his late wife, Bathsheba."

  "Why are you telling me this? Why are you talking? Why are you here?"

  "Jack Roper is also a deputy, over at the sheriff's station."

  "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

  "Nellie Anderson filed a complaint last night."

  "Never heard of her."

  "She said a man broke into her house. She described the man. Her description sounded exactly like you."

  Billy had a vague recollection of a blue hair net and a lot of shrieking. "Wait a minute. Tall, skinny broad? Hangs out with Owen's wife, Linda Lou?"

  Prue just looked down at him and sighed.

  He lifted a hand and waved it in front of his face. "It was an accident. I thought I was here."