Free Early Graves by Joseph Hansen Page B

know—it made things hard for him with the other children. Poked fun at him, hit him. Lost his mama early too. That made it worse. His daddy tried to beat it out of him. Mason would never hit Dandy—that his dog. Just the boy. And I was the one Billy run to. I let him cry to me, I was kind to him. Why not? Wasn’t his fault. God made a mistake, is all—put a girl in a boy’s body.”
    “But he lived with his father?” Dave said.
    “Right here. I’d have had him with me, but I’m crippled. Railroad accident. No way I could look after a child. No money. Railroad lawyers seen to that. Disability all I get, and that ain’t scarcely enough for one, let alone two.”
    “He grew up,” Dave said. “Why did he stay?”
    Dixon shook his head. “Don’t make sense, do it? But he did. And he earned the money. Short-order cook. Suited Mason fine, laying around all day, free food and lodging, all the six-packs he could drink. Never changed how he treated Billy—same ugly mouth. But Billy looked after him. And the dog. See that wallpaper? Billy’s hand. He loved things to be pretty.”
    “I think he knew who killed him, all of them did. The medical examiner couldn’t find any sign they’d put up a struggle before they were knifed. You never met his friends?”
    “Police asked me that too,” Dixon said. “He never brought nobody when he come to see me.” The wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “Could you call them friends, that kind?”
    “Did he mention any names?” Dave said. “Did he know any of the other young men killed the same way—Art Lopez, Sean O’Reilly, Frank Prohaska, Edward Vorse, Drew Dodge?”
    Dixon listened hard, frowning, but he shook his head. “No, I heard those names on the TV news, but not from Billy.”
    “Why isn’t his father living here now?” Dave said.
    “Scared of infection. Billy got AIDS, you know. And Mason, he took Dandy and moved out. Took all the nice furniture Billy bought too. Left Billy here on a mattress on the floor, sick by himself. Claimed to me he was feeding him. You know what that meant? He got hamburgers in bags, and he sent Dandy up the stairs with them. ‘Go take it to Billy,’ he’d say, standing down there in the street door. Well, Dandy, he just a dog, and when he got up the stairs out of Mason’s sight, he ate the food. He never brought it up here, never.”
    “Wonderful,” Dave said.
    “But they good folks in this building, some of ’em. And one come and told me Billy was alone and sick and starving, and I used a pay phone and called around County offices I know, and one of ’em sent help, got him into a hospital. I paid the back rent here and moved in to hold the place for him. And after a while, he got strong enough to come back. I didn’t know him, he was so wasted. And then he went out the other night, and somebody killed him with a knife.”
    “He never said he was afraid that would happen?”
    Dixon shook his head. “All he was afraid of was AIDS.”

8
    H E FOLLOWED PATCHY TRAFFIC up Alvarado through the rain. There was an odd tightness in his throat. Cold sweat covered him. He wanted the rattly car to get him home. It had been a mistake to come out. He would hit the bed and sleep. Or maybe he wouldn’t make the effort to climb to the loft. He’d just pass out on the couch. It had been a long time since he’d felt this bad. Motorcycles stood bunched at a curb in front of a shabby stucco building with a sign in faint, sputtery red neon tubing, THE MOTO-CROSS . It had the look of a place used only after dark, but a youth in chain-hung leather, boots, greasy dark curls, came out the door, carrying a crash helmet. He winced at the daylight, paused to put on the helmet, then straddled one of the motorcycles.
    Dave turned off Alvarado and found a side street of hulking frame houses that had quartered USC students in the past. Very old, thick-trunked date palms lined the curbs. So did cars, sad specimens mostly, wheels to get to work on.