Chapter 10
Ten
Arthur spent nearly four hours on Halloween morning decorating the Brooks Library for the “Ghosts of Shakespeare” party, an
decked out with flickering electric candles and the shelves were draped in fake cobwebs. After dark, the drama club kids would
emerge from balconies and out of darkened nooks to perform sinister snippets of Hamlet and Macbeth while the audience wandered around in the gloom, tittering nervously. When Van learned Arthur wasn’t planning to attend,
he looked horrified and astonished—as if Arthur had told him Johnny Cash was dead. It was one of Rackham’s most popular yearly
events, and the idea of Arthur avoiding the library on Halloween night was like imagining the Vatican on Easter without the
pope.
“We’re all going!” Van said. “Allie and Donna are going to sneak Gwen in, and she’ll probably be dressed as a slutty witch
or something. You telling me you can bear to miss that? What are you going to do instead? Stay in the apartment and study
the Scrabble dictionary?”
Arthur hated the idea of Gwen having fun with the others and not being there to see it. But after stealing two thousand dollars’
worth of books from the library, he could hardly bear to spend one more minute there than was necessary. Walking into the
place now made his teeth ache. It was as if the library had become toxic to him . . . only that had it backward. The library
wasn’t poison. He was. Every time he stole a book for Jayne, he polluted the place a little more with his existence.
He hit the 7-Eleven on the way back to the apartment.
Unsurprisingly, the candy aisle was pretty well wiped out.
He scrounged through what was left and picked up a large bag of circus peanuts.
When he was back at the apartment, he poured them into a bowl and left it on the porch, hoping kids would help themselves and let him be.
He parked himself at his usual spot in the kitchen to polish off a translation.
Not long after full dark, there came a rap at the door, urgent and sharp, and he pushed away his copy of The Exeter Book. He still had a half-full bag of circus peanuts and carried it to the door with him, thinking the bowl must already be empty,
and kids these days were turning into pigs.
Only it wasn’t a pack of children at all. Instead, he found the Mystery Gang waiting for him: Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby,
and, of course, Velma. It was Gwen in Velma Dinkley’s fuzzy carrot-colored sweater and the pleated skirt that ended midthigh,
orange socks pulled to her knees. She looked at him merrily through her glasses, which he now saw had always been exactly
the sort of black-framed chunky glasses Velma wore.
“Jinkies,” she said. “We were looking for someone with a clue. Boy, did we come to the wrong place!”
Allie waved both hands and jumped up and down in excitement. She looked great as Fred, an orange silk ascot around her throat,
bell-bottoms flaring around her platform sandals. Her boyishly short blond hair was swept back Fred-style.
“Zoinks!” she cried. “Love your costume, Arthur! You’re all dressed up as someone who doesn’t know how to have fun.”
“Chrissakes,” Van said. He was hanging off Allie’s arm. “Have you ever seen an episode of Scooby-Doo? How deprived were you as a child? Shaggy’s the one who says ‘Zoinks.’” Van wore a shoulder-length copper wig, a purple dress, and trashy black
stockings. At first glance, Arthur had assumed he was Donna. Donna was to the right of him, though, in Shaggy’s loose green
tee and baggy trousers.
“You might not want to pretend to be some big expert in Scooby-Doo, strutting around in a pair of fishnets like those,” Arthur
said. “Daphne never wore stockings like that.”
“She does now,” Van told him. “How the fuck do you think they pay for the Scooby-Doo lifestyle?”
“Fred Jones doesn’t need to prostitute his girlfriends,” Colin said, looking unselfconscious and easy in his own skin, even
if he was wearing a Great Dane costume—his face sticking out from under Scooby’s jaw. “They’re financed by the CIA. How else
do you think the Mystery Gang can communicate with a dog? They were all part of the MK-Ultra experiments: hammered with experimental
drugs until they heard animals speaking to them.”
They found their way to Arthur’s bedroom, which, in an earlier era, had been someone’s parlor. One half of the room had been
made over into a sort of living area, with beanbags arranged around Arthur’s small Zenith TV set. Van flipped it on without
asking. Freddy was leaving body parts all over Elm Street. Donna led Colin in by the leash and tugged him down onto a beanbag
beside her.
Van sprawled on his belly, slow-kicking his own bottom with his transparent stripper heels. “Be honest, guys. Is Allie checking
out my moneymaker? She was undressing me with her eyes the whole walk over. I’m pretty amped—I don’t think she’s ever ogled
me before.”
Gwen had to pound Allie on the back. She had a circus peanut stuck in her throat.
Gwen’s hand, striking Allie between the shoulder blades, sounded like a fist banging on a door. Only the knocking continued
after she stopped. Arthur snatched the bag of circus peanuts away from Donna and went to investigate.
He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch without looking to see who was there. He found a trio of trolls waiting
for him, two guys and a girl, all of them too old for trick-or-treat. The girl was visibly pregnant, her cheap purple tank
top stretched over a front porch of her own. All three of them wore identical rubber masks. Tusks protruded from leathery,
snarling mouths. Foreheads bulged, Frankenstein-style.
A wiry guy in a jean jacket and a wifebeater, with the lean hips of a fencer, stood in front of the other two.
He held a big hardcover in one hand, down at his side.
Arthur was surprised, didn’t think the average trick-or-treater went out with reading material.
He crooked his neck to read the title on the spine: The Patchwork Girl of Oz.
A sick, paralyzing chill began to spread behind his breastbone.
By the time Arthur realized the guy wasn’t a guy at all, Jayne Nighswander was on top of him, smacking him upside the head
with the book. He stumbled backward and she hit him again, the flat of the book across his nose. He felt something pop, staggered,
and sat down, blinking at tears.
“Fuck is this?” Jayne said, squatting to get eye to eye with him and waving the hardcover in his face. She hooked one thumb
under the bottom of her mask and lifted it up so he could see her flushed face. “Patchwork Girl of Oz? Not even signed? My Boston buyer said she’d give me thirty bucks for it. Thirty fucking bucks? That barely covers the gas
to Boston and back. We need sixty grand, fuckface.” She smacked him with the book again, turning his head halfway around.
He was trying to get an arm up to defend himself when Ronnie caught her wrist and pulled her up. “Come on, babe. Look at him.
He’s starting to cry. He’s just a kid.” Arthur had dropped the bag of circus peanuts, throwing a scatter of them across the
porch. Ronnie bent to pick one up and pop it in his mouth. “Man, I love these! They’re like Halloween crack!”
The screen door opened behind Arthur. He came drunkenly to his feet as Colin stepped onto the porch, blinking at the trolls
from the hole in Scooby’s chest. “What’s up, folks?”
His leash was dangling. Jayne stepped forward, grabbed it, and yanked him toward her. Colin almost fell into her before she
shoved him the other way. His heels skidded out from under him and he crashed into the wall, falling to the floor amid the
circus peanuts.
“Who the hell is this?” Jayne asked.
“This is the fuckin’ cavalry,” Donna said, moving into the doorway, glancing from Colin to Jayne. “Yo, bitch. Put your mask
back on before you scare someone.”
“Arthur, are you all right?” Gwen asked, ducking past Donna to get to him.
Allie was in the hall, peering out past Donna’s shoulder. She said, “I’ll call the police,” and turned toward the hall phone.
Jayne moved. Donna stepped into her path to slow her down and Jayne slammed the spine of the hardcover into her throat. Donna’s
hands flew to her neck and she made a sound somewhere between a gag and a cough. She reeled back and fell over Colin, who
was still on the ground.
Allie got one step down the hall and then Jayne had her by the ascot, was dragging her onto the porch. Allie took three tottering
steps back in her platform sandals before her heels hit the jamb and she toppled, falling on top of Donna and Colin.
Jayne was staring at the squirming pile of college students at her feet when Van lunged out of the dark of the hallway, driving
his right shoulder into Jayne’s bony chest, slamming her back into Ronnie and sending the book flying. Jayne was wiry and
slender, maybe 115 pounds, and her legs went. She sagged, as if to sit down, but Ronnie got his left arm around her waist
to hold her up. His right hand came out from behind his back to level an automatic pistol in Van’s face.
“Whoa there, cowboy,” Ronnie said.
Jayne’s eyes were cold and unfocused. She righted herself and Ronnie let her go.
Van looked frightened now, patches of color in his cheeks, his hands up, palms out. “Hey. What the fuck’s with the gun? That’s not cool, man.”
Jayne took a step toward him. “You think you got big balls. Shove a woman? Do you got big balls, kiddo?” She shoved a hand
under his skirt, grabbed him by the crotch, and squeezed. Van’s knees bent and drew together. He began to double over, crying
out softly. “They don’t feel that big to me. They feel like li’l ol’ jellybeans.” When she let him go, he keeled over, hitting
the porch so hard it shook the windows in their frames.
“Check it out, Jayne! I think Fred has boobies!” Ronnie cried.
Allie had crawled off Colin and Donna and was now on her hands and knees at Ronnie’s feet. She gave him her most winsome smile. “Hey, man. Point that somewhere else, okay? Please.”
Ronnie stuck the gun in the waistband of his jeans, settling it at the small of his back. Up until this time, Tana had not
moved or spoken. Now, though, she lifted her mask to reveal her face. Tana handed Gwen a plastic package of Kleenex, which
she had produced from a cheap pink plastic clutch.
“For his nose,” she said, nodding to Arthur. Arthur stared back at her, his gaze shifting to her ripening abdomen and back
to her pretty, freckled, snub-nosed face.
“Thanks, Tana,” Gwen said. “I don’t think it’s broken. Colin, can Donna breathe?”
“Well enough,” Colin said, rubbing Donna’s back while she gasped. “You two know each other?” Nodding from Gwen to Tana.
“We worked in Dunkin’ Donuts together a couple years ago,” Gwen said.
“Dunkin’ Donuts is where Tana got that sweet fat ass of hers,” Jayne said, and gave her sister an open-handed whap on the
bottom.
If this bothered Tana in any way at all, her face didn’t show it. Instead, she gave Arthur a calm, considering look. He had
to stare down the length of his nose to meet her gaze, his chin tipped back, Gwen pressing tissues to his nostrils. “Arthur?
I know what you’re doing. It’s been obvious for a while. You’re trying not to steal anything too valuable from the library.
I get it. You don’t want to do anything really terrible. But trust me, it’s better to get it over with. Just close your eyes
and do what they want and then put it behind you. Don’t think about it. With a little practice, it can be like it never happened
at all.”
“Hey, babe,” Ronnie said to Allie. “Do me a favor? Will you pick up the circus peanuts and put ’em in the bag? That shit is
good. We’re taking them with us.”
Allie began to crawl around on all fours, collecting circus peanuts. Ronnie smiled, studying the sway of her rear end.
Donna lifted her chin. Her cheeks were puffy, swollen from crying, and her black lashes were gummed with tears. Colin had a hand on her shoulder—whether to steady her or restrain her, Arthur couldn’t have said.
“Stop picking them up!” Donna screamed at Allie, her voice a painful rasp. “Stop crawling around for them!”
Allie ignored her. She finished collecting the circus peanuts and then offered Ronnie the bag from her knees, her face level
with his crotch.
Ronnie put a hand under her chin, tipping her head back. With his other hand he took the bag of circus peanuts. “Thank you,
honey. These are almost as sweet as you.”
Ronnie dropped his hand and Allie crawled to Van, who was curled in the fetal position on his side. She cradled his head in
her lap, his wig long gone.
“Quit nibbling around with the little shit, Artie,” Jayne said. “Next time Tana comes by to collect, you better hand her books
worth their weight in gold. You don’t want to know what’s gonna happen to your mother if you don’t.”
“You’re fucking disgusting,” Donna rasped. “You’re fucking disgusting human beings.”
“Lot of people, they only get to be monsters one night of the year,” Jayne said, tugging her troll mask back down over her
face. “Which is a real shame. It’s much more fun when you make it a way of life.”