Deranged by Harold Schechter Read Free Book Online Page A

a gesture that, in Mrs. Budd’s eyes, seemed as courtly as a kiss on the hand. “Good day to you.” he said. “My name is Frank Howard. I’m here with an offer that might be of interest to your son.”
    Stepping back from the doorway, Mrs. Budd held out a welcoming hand. “Come on in Eddie’s over to a friend’s but I’ll have my little girl fetch him for you.”
    The old man nodded again and, walking with a slightly bowlegged gait, followed Mrs. Budd into the living room, where she invited him to have a seat. As carefully as a convalescent, Mr. Howard lowered himself into a chintz-covered armchair.
    Calling Beatrice from the bedroom, Mrs. Budd told the child to run around the corner to the Korman apartment and tell her brother to come home immediately. As the five-year-old passed the stranger in the easy chair, the old man reached out bony hand took her by the wrist.
    “You remind me of my own grandaughter. What do they call you?”
    The little girl, who had just turned five, stared shyly at her feet. “Beatrice,” she said after a moment.
    Reaching into his pocket, the old man came up with a shiny coin. “Here’s a five-cent piece for your trouble,” he said, placing the nickel in her palm.
    Beatrice held up the coin for the mother to see.
    “What do you say to the man?” Mrs. Budd asked reprovingly.
    “Thank you,” said Beatrice, then dashed out the door.
    “You’ll spoil the child,” Mrs. Budd said with a smile. “Would you care for some lemonade? I got some freshmade in the ice box.”
    “That would be nice.”
    The windows of the Budds’ apartment faced a back alley, and even at the height of a bright spring afternoon, the rooms were filled with shadows. After returning with the drink, Mrs. Budd switched on a table lamp next to her guest, and in its yellow glow, she took a better look at him.
    It was hard to tell his age, though he seemed dried-up and shrunken, one of those wizened old men whose hollow faces look like parchment-covered skulls. He had a sharp, beaked nose, watery blue eyes, a thatch of gray hair, and a gray moustache that drooped over the corners of his mouth. Gazing up at Mrs. Budd, he smiled benignly, revealing a set of moldy teeth. His top incisors protruded slightly, giving him the look of a kindly old rodent.
    His navy blue suit, Mrs. Budd could now see, was shabbier than it had seemed in the hallway—its jacket cuffs frayed, its pants worn to a shine at the knees. Still, he looked respectable enough, and when he raised his left hand to lift the lemonade glass to his mouth, a large diamond pinky ring glittered in the lamplight.
    The old man had just set his empty glass down on the side table when Beatrice returned with her brother Eddie and his best friend, Willie Korman, another compactly built teenager with an impressive set of shoulders. Mrs. Budd introduced the boys to the elderly visitor, who half-raised himself from his seat to shake hands, then settled back onto the cushion with a wince.
    As Mrs. Budd made room for the boys on the sofa, the old man proceeded to describe his situation. For many years, he explained in a quiet, almost whispery voice, he had worked as an interior decorator in Washington, D.C. He had done very well for himself. He had a good marriage and six wonderful children. Then, his eyesight began to fail. Taking the money he had made from his business, he had indulged a lifelong dream by pur chasing a “nice little farm” out in Farmingdale, Long Island.
    His wife, however, had hated country living from the start, and within a year she had abandoned him, leaving him with the care of their children. He had been both mother and father to them for a dozen years. Life had been hard for them during that time, but his children, thank God, had all turned out well. “One of my boys is a cadet at West Point,” he said proudly.
    Moreover, he had managed to make the farm a go. With three hundred chickens and a half-dozen milk cows, the place provided him