The Boxer and the Spy

Chapter 25

Abby sat at her desk in front of the window in her upstairs bedroom. The messages started in the morning.

“Hi, Abb, it’s number seventeen,” a girl’s voice said.

That would be Suzi.

“Mr. Bullard drove by a minute ago while I was waiting for the bus... I assume he’s going to school like the rest of us poor convicts... Why doesn’t the cheap creep get a real car... He looks so funny all squeezed into that little sardine can he drives...”

“Hi, Abby, it’s Otis, I forgot my number... anyway I saw Bullard at that place, near me, where the tech arts kids are building a house... Kip Carter was there too.”

“It’s number eleven,” a boy’s voice said.

Abby checked her list. Number eleven was Jason’s friend Perry Fisher.

“I don’t even know if it matters, but you said to report everything... I saw Kip Carter riding in Mr. Bullard’s car with Mr. Bullard... I don’t know where they were going.”

Abby made her notes.

“Number seven reporting...” It was Bev. “Mr. Bullard’s car was gone from the school parking lot from two in the afternoon... It was still gone when I went home after school.”

Abby wrote it down.

“Hey, babe.” It was a boy’s voice. “It’s number three... I don’t like being number three... you know I’m number one... Ha, ha!... Anyway it’s seven o‘clock at night. Bullard just went into the Trents’ house.”

Number three was Carly Clark. He was black and had gone to school in Cabot as a Metco student since first grade. He was a really good basketball player, good enough for a scholarship, and his parents had rented a house in Cabot, right across from the Trents, so they could keep him in school here, and let him practice, and not waste half his day coming back and forth from Boston. When they moved in, there were some people that didn’t like it. But there was no real trouble.

“Hey, Abby... you know who this is... I seen Mr. Bullard talking with Mr. Malcolm, the construction teacher, for, like, half an hour outside Bullard’s office this morning.”

Abby did know who it was. Tank’s voice was still boyish and sort of high for a kid so big.

Abby put the information down. She used a Sharpie with lavender ink that matched the lines on her notepaper. Alone at night in her bedroom with an earpiece plugged into her cell phone, she wrote carefully, in a nice hand, the trivial information about Bullard and other people. It was engrossing. And she felt a little edge of excitement as she wrote and watched the shape of Bullard’s behavior begin to form. If you knew enough about a person, every day, if enough people watched him, you could figure out a lot of stuff.

But for now she wasn’t doing any figuring. She was merely recording. Later, with Terry, maybe all that she’d written down would form a pattern that mattered. She could sort of feel it starting to. Who he saw the most, where he went the most, what he did the most. It was all going to mean something sooner or later.

The phone rang. It was late. She looked at her clock—after eleven.

“Number three again, babe. I’m going to hit the sack, but I just wanted to tell you that Bullard’s still over at Trents’ house.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. I can see his car. He parked it around the corner, up the street, but I can see it from my bedroom window.”

“I wonder why he parked it up the street?”

“Hey, I just the spotter here, babe. You and your boyfriend s‘pposed to do the thinking.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Abby said.

“Uh-huh,” Carly said.

“Was there space to park closer?”

“Sure,” Carly said. “Park in the driveway like most people do who’re visiting.”

“So what do you think?”

Carly laughed.

“Well, maybe they got some hanky-panky going on,” he said.

“You think he’s visiting Mrs. Trent?”

“Can’t tell,” Carly said.

“Well, keep an eye on them,” Abby said.

“Sho‘,” Carly said, and hung up.

Hanky-panky, she thought.

Abby sat looking at the darkness outside her bedroom window.

We’ll find out, she thought.