Small Steps Read online

  I may have ruined my life, Armpit thought, but at least I got to eat some really good Chinese food.

  Fred moved with determination along the pedestrian walkway on the Golden Gate Bridge, oblivious to the dirty glances from slow-walking tourists as he elbowed his way past them. His face had the look of pained urgency. He had never lost Kaira before.

  Every walker on the bridge, every driver in a car represented danger. Although, really, what worried him the most wasn’t some wild-eyed stranger. Sure, Theodore Johnson seemed like a good kid, but what did they know about him? Not much, except that he had a violent criminal history.

  Fred made his way past the first tower on the bridge and was able to get a good view of the people up ahead. He spied a person wearing a red sweatshirt, but the person walking next to the red sweatshirt had on a yellow jacket and was too tall.

  33

  Kaira listened to Gilligan’s Island in the shower through a special speaker connected to the TV. She would have to leave for the concert in a little over an hour.

  Not all the moisture on her face came from the shower nozzle. Some of it came from thinking that nobody would ever like her for who she was, only for what she was.

  She’d be glad when the concert started and she could lose herself in the songs. Singing about heartbreak and betrayal would come easy. She’d have to conjure up an imaginary person again for the love songs.

  Jerome Paisley knocked on the door to her suite, waited a moment, the slipped a key card into the lock. He opened the door and stuck his large head inside.

  “Kaira,” he said, but not too loudly. He held the baseball bat. His hands were sweating inside the latex gloves.

  He entered and pulled the door gently shut behind him. He could hear the shower running and the sound of the television.

  Kaira’s suite was bigger than his, with three rooms and a working fireplace. It always bugged him that she got the best room.

  The Skipper was yelling at Gilligan.

  As Jerome Paisley made his way through the suite, he could feel his blood pounding inside his head. His eyes blurred momentarily, and he stopped to take a breath. So far it had just been a plan, an intellectual exercise by El Genius, but there was a big difference between the planning and the doing.

  He gathered his courage and continued into the bedroom. He grabbed hold of a bedpost to steady himself, then waited just outside the bathroom door. The shower was still running.

  He heard a rattling noise, then realized that his hand was shaking so much, the bat was knocking against the wall. He hoped Kaira hadn’t heard it.

  Armpit was winded when returned to the hotel. He had always thought the hills in Austin were steep, but they were nothing compared to where he’d just been. One of the streets was so steep the sidewalk had been shaped to form stairs.

  The orange message lights were blinking on his telephones—all five of them. He splashed his face with cold water and watched the phone in the bathroom mirror blink on and off rapidly.

  He returned to his bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, then picked up the phone. He pressed the button for messages.

  “I don’t hate you. I’m just sick and tired of being used by everyone. Why should you be any different? Just go ahead and sell the letter. I don’t care. I really don’t. Everyone else makes money off me, why not you? Besides, how can I be embarrassed? I’m not a real person! I don’t have feelings! I’m just a— Just go away. I never want to see you again! You’re right. I don’t have a clue. But neither do you.”

  Well, he could have told her that.

  A new voice came on.

  “That was your final message. To hear the message again, press three. To save it, press six. To erase—”

  Armpit hung up.

  Kaira put on a hotel robe. The volume control for the bathroom speaker was to the side of the sink. She turned it down now that it didn’t have to compete with the shower.

  She towel-dried her hair. Rosemary would come fix it later. She dropped the towel on the floor, opened the bathroom door, and took one step into the bedroom.

  Jerome Paisley closed his eyes as he swung.

  The bat caromed off her shoulder, then slammed against her throat.

  Kaira fell against the bedpost, and before she could even figure out what was happening, she was struck again, this time across her chest.

  She found herself on the floor. She tried to crawl under the bed but was only able to partially protect her head. The area under the bed had been blocked off so guests wouldn’t lose their keys and underwear.

  The bat smashed against the back of her neck just below the base of her skull.

  She was only vaguely aware of what was happening as Jerome Paisley grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her away from the safety of the bed. She saw the eerie image of her business manager/stepfather split into two people, each holding a baseball bat high above his head.

  There was a noise from out in the sitting area, and then a shout.

  It sounded like the Doofus!

  Jerome turned away from Kaira and swung just as Fred lunged at him. The bat cracked hard against Fred’s rib cage, but he kept coming. His hands wrapped around El Genius’s thick neck as the two men fell to the ground.

  Kaira watched the bat rolled across the floor and under the TV cabinet. She wanted to scream but couldn’t get a breath. She tried to crawl to the telephone but couldn’t raise herself off the floor.

  There was an anguished groan; then Jerome pushed himself up to his knees, took several deep breaths, and stood up the rest of the way. He glanced at Kaira, then went to retrieve the bat.

  Fred remained on the floor. Sticking into his stomach was the knife from Armpit’s fruit and cheese plate.

  The entrance to Kaira’s hotel suite had double doors, as it was frequently used to host parties. Armpit was surprised to find one of the doors open. He knocked, and when there was no answer, stepped inside.

  He could hear the TV coming from the bedroom. “Kaira?” he called.

  Jerome froze. He looked down at Kaira, but she was in no condition to cry out.

  “Kaira,” Armpit called again.

  No answer.

  “Look, if you don’t want to see me, I understand. I just came to return the letter. I’m not going to sell it. I don’t want anything from you.”

  Jerome moved to the bedroom door, his bat ready. He really didn’t want to have to kill Theodore Johnson. That would just complicate things.

  Kaira fought to retain consciousness. She tried to call out, but she had nothing left.

  Armpit set the letter on the bar. “I’m just putting it right here on the bar,” he said.

  Good, thought Jerome Paisley. Touch the bar.

  “Well, I’m going now,” Armpit said. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll never be the same again.”

  He waited a moment to see if his little joke might bring her out, but when it didn’t, he headed to the door.

  Kaira’s eyes were closed, but her hand felt around under the night table. Her fingers wrapped around an electrical cord. Using every last bit of strength she had left, she pulled the cord.

  The lamp came down with a crash.

  Armpit stopped. “You all right?”

  There was no answer.

  “You okay, Kaira?”

  He walked quickly into the dining area, and then on into the bedroom. “Kaira?”

  He saw Kaira’s stepfather just in time to raise one arm. The bat smashed against it, breaking the bone, and he collapsed to his knees.

  El Genius swung again, but Armpit spun away, then pulled himself up with the help of a bedpost.

  He saw Fred on the floor, and lots of blood. He didn’t see Kaira.

  He took several deep breaths as he backed up against the TV cabinet and readied himself for the next attack. His right arm was broken, but he was left-handed.

  Kaira’s stepfather stepped over Fred as he came at Armpit again, but just as he swung, Fred grabbed an ankle, and the bat smashed into th
e television set, which exploded in a green flash.

  Armpit’s left fist was still gaining momentum as it connected just below El Genius’s nose, flooring him.

  Armpit was all over him, hitting him first with his fist, and then with his elbow on the backswing, again and again, until Jerome Paisley lay motionless.

  Kaira’s hairdresser, Rosemary, walked into the bedroom and screamed.

  34

  Amid the chaos of police, doctors, ambulance workers, TV news crew, Kaira’s hysterical mother, and other people from the tour all trying to figure out what was happening, Armpit managed to retrieve Kaira’s letter from the bar and toss it into the fireplace.

  The last he saw of Kaira and Fred, they were being taken out on stretchers. Kaira was unconscious. She had passed out right after pulling over the lamp.

  Too dizzy to walk, Kaira’s stepfather had to be held up by a couple of police officers as he was led out in handcuffs.

  Fred was able to speak just enough to confirm Armpit’s innocence, although that really wasn’t much of an issue. Armpit would have thought that with him caught in the act of beating up Kaira’s stepfather, everyone would have assumed he was the attacker, but nobody doubted his story. Maybe it was his demeanor, or the latex gloves on Jerome Paisley’s hands, or the fact that he was the one who had shouted at Rosemary to call the police.

  The next twelve hours were a whirling blur of confusion. There was nobody in charge. It was actually Duncan, the bass player, who finally called the Berkeley Auditorium and informed them that there’d be no concert. That wasn’t until after eight o’clock.

  Twenty thousand people were stamping their feet and shouting, “We want Kaira!” when a man came out and mistakenly announced that Kaira DeLeon had just been murdered. Some people cried, while others were desperately looking for their ticket stubs.

  Armpit was questioned four times by the police: first in Kaira’s suite, then on the way to the emergency room, where his broken arm was set, then twice more at the police station. He signed a ten-page statement.

  He didn’t return to the hotel until well after midnight. In the morning he tried to find out if anyone knew anything about Kaira, but nobody did.

  The people associated with the tour didn’t know what they were supposed to do or where they were supposed to go. Nobody knew who would pay the enormous hotel bill. Aileen, the woman who normally would have been in charge, couldn’t be found. She had flown ahead to Portland but never checked into the hotel.

  Nancy Young suggested, only somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that Armpit might want to leave now, before he got stuck with the bill. He took a cab to the airport, where he was able to exchange his ticket for the next flight, but there were no first-class seats available. Not that he cared. He slept the whole way home, much to the dismay of the passenger sitting next to him, who kept having to nudge him awake.

  “W-were you scared?” asked Ginny.

  “It all happened so fast. I just reacted. When I think about it now, I get scared.”

  “Me too,” said Ginny. Her eyes moistened, and she dabbed them with her Golden Gate Bridge scarf.

  It felt oddly normal to be back in Austin. “You want to sign my cast?” he asked Ginny.

  “Yes.”

  It was Sunday. They were sitting in his half of the duplex. It was impossible for them to take their usual walk. The street was filled with news vans and camera crews.

  Armpit’s mother had had to shoo away a number of reporters, local and national.

  “He doesn’t want to be interviewed!” he’d heard her say. “Why won’t you respect his wishes?”

  It was nice to hear his mother use the word “respect” when talking about him. But then again, it wasn’t every mother’s son whose picture was on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the country, usually with the word “hero” somewhere in the headline.

  Most of the articles had their facts wrong. According to the Austin paper, Kaira had given him a key to her room, and he had come up for a romantic rendezvous when he discovered she was under attack. An all-news network reported that he was in bed with Kaira when the attack occurred.

  What must have happened, he came to realize, was that Fred had left the door to her suite open when he rushed in to save her after returning from his wild-goose chase.

  “Does Kaira know you saved her life?” asked Ginny.

  “I guess somebody must have told her,” Armpit said. “And it’s on the news.”

  “She should call you.”

  “She will when she gets better. She’s in bad shape.”

  The doorbell rang.

  His mother threw up her hands. “Why won’t they leave you alone?” She sounded exasperated, but Armpit could tell she loved every minute of it.

  “I told you people— Oh.” She turned to Armpit and told him a police officer wanted to speak to him.

  Detective Debbie Newberg put away her badge as she stepped inside. “Hi, Ginny.”

  “Hi,” said Ginny.

  “I need to speak to Theodore alone, if you don’t mind.”

  If Armpit’s mother was surprised by any of this, she didn’t show it. Armpit figured nothing surprised her anymore.

  “C’mon, Ginny, let’s see how many people take our picture,” Armpit’s mother said. She took Ginny by the hand and led her outside.

  Detective Newberg joined Armpit on the sofa. “You’re quite the hero,” she said. Her cheeks flushed pink.

  Armpit shrugged.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’ve been assigned to another case. I told my superiors that all my leads had dried up. And really, for just two counterfeit tickets, it isn’t worth the resources.”

  “So you’re not going to try to find the ticket scalper?”

  Detective Newberg shook her head.

  “I see,” said Armpit, trying to sound as if the matter was of little importance to him, but a little bit of a smile slipped out despite his efforts. He never had a very good poker face.

  “Can I sign your cast?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  He gave her the same marker Ginny had used.

  Detective Newberg held his cast as she prepared to write. “So do you want it to Theodore, or to Armpit?”

  “Uh . . .”

  If this was a test he had just failed it.

  She winked at him. “Don’t worry. Like I said, case closed.”

  “So how’d you find out? Did Felix tell you?”

  “Felix? He knew?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “No, I just put two and two together and came up with four.”

  He always knew she would. “I really didn’t know the tickets were counterfeit,” he said.

  “Oh, I figured that, too. The man who bought the real tickets told me that X-Ray had been reluctant to sell them because he’d promised them to a friend. At the time I thought it was just X-Ray trying to jack him around, but then it hit me . . . you were the friend.”

  “X-Ray’s really not a bad guy,” said Armpit.

  “He’d be all right if he just learned to keep his mouth shut,” said Detective Newberg.

  He watched her sign her name. “I always liked you,” he told her. “I thought you were really cool, and smart, and I really felt bad about lying to you and everything.”

  Detective Newberg looked up and smiled. “No harm, no foul,” she said, then dotted the “i” in her name.

  Kaira opened her eyes to see the blurry image of Fred looking down at her. He was wearing a paper-thin blue hospital gown. She might have laughed if it hadn’t hurt so much.

  “How ya doin?” he asked her.

  She tried to talk but could just barely move her mouth. Her face was heavily bandaged. The only nourishment she got was from the IV tube sticking into her arm.

  There was something wrong with her vocal cords as well, and she was only able to speak in a kind of raspy whisper. Fred leaned close to hear her.

  “Thanks for risking your life for me.”

  Fred touched her arm. “Ju
st doin’ my job, Miss DeLeon.” He winked.

  He started to straighten up, but she grabbed his arm. There was something else she wanted to say. He had to put his ear close to her mouth to hear her.

  “I’m sorry I was such a doofus,” said Kaira.

  35

  Over the next two months, a lot more people signed Armpit’s cast, most of them females who decorated their names with hearts and flowers. He didn’t get an F in economics, but an Incomplete, which turned into an 89 after he made up the final.

  He was very lucky, and he knew it. If Jerome Paisley had succeeded in killing Kaira, Armpit would have spent the rest of his life in jail.

  His fingerprints were on the bat. The knife came from his room. Her room key was found in his hotel suite. Traces of his blood and hair would be discovered in the next letter from Billy Boy. Then there was his prior criminal history, and the very public argument at the coffeehouse.

  “If I was on the jury, even I would have voted to convict me,” he said.

  “No, you’da gotten off,” X-Ray assured him. “How did you get the bat? You couldn’t have brought it from Austin. It wouldn’t fit in your backpack. And what? Did Ginny fake a seizure just so you could meet Kaira DeLeon? And you could have gotten Debbie Newberg to investigate for you and she would have found out about the missing money. Besides, how did your hair and blood get inside the envelope? What—did you cut yourself while brushing your hair, while you were writing the letter? The frame was too obvious. If you’re going to frame somebody, you got to be more subtle about it.”

  “You should be a lawyer,” said Ginny.

  “A lawyer,” said X-Ray as he mulled it over. “Now you’re talkin’. I’m good at the art of verbal persuasion.”

  “Otherwise known as BS,” said Armpit.

  The three of them were sitting in Ginny’s room, with all her stuffed animals.

  As it turned out, the evidence that would have been used to convict Theodore Johnson would now be used against Jerome Paisley to prove premeditation—to show he had planned to murder her. However, El Genius had pretty much confessed to everything, so it didn’t look like there would even be a trial.