Jazz had thought long and hard and then longer and harder about what to do with his grandmother for the next couple of days. He had actually considered bringing her to New York with him, but the thought of being in a confined space with her for the duration of the flight was enough to make him want to bail out of the plane without a parachute. And then there was the idea of Gramma on her own in the biggest, craziest city in the world while Jazz was off prospecting the prospector for the NYPD. There was a slight chance that Gramma’s crazy would complement New York’s just fine, but he wasn’t going to bank on it. Images of Gramma attacking tourists capered in before his mind’s eye, and he could almost hear her shrieking, “Tell that bitch to stop staring at me!” while pointing at the Statue of Liberty.
No, Gramma would have to stay in Lobo’s Nod. And he couldn’t rely on the usual suspects to take care of her—it was one thing to let Erickson sit with her for a couple of hours, but if he had anyone on G. William’s staff looking after her, it would take no time at all before the sheriff had Jazz’s case with Social Services expedited right up the priority list… and bounced Jazz into a foster home and Gramma into an assisted-living facility. He’d already dodged that bullet once when Billy—in a fit of parental protection like no other—had horrifically tortured and slaughtered Melissa Hoover and conveniently deleted the files she’d accumulated on Jazz’s situation. It would be months before the Social Services people reconstructed anything incriminating. Jazz hoped it would take until he turned eighteen, at which point it would become moot.
In the meantime, the cops—friendly to Jazz, but honor bound to report Gramma’s attenuating connection to planet earth—were out as babysitters. And Howie was willing but too weak. Gramma could cause some serious damage if she went on one of her crazed slapping and punching benders.
Jazz had had no choice but to call his aunt Samantha.
It felt strange to think of her as “Aunt Samantha.” He’d never met the woman in his life—Billy’s older sister had moved away from Lobo’s Nod right after graduating high school and never looked back. In the years since Billy’s ravages had become nighttime news fodder, she had done her level best to stay out of the limelight, avoiding the press at every turn. Her only comment had come at the end of a long day of being hunted by the media, stalked with the same precision and tenacity Billy evinced when prospecting. A reporter with a camera crew had finally pinned her down in a mall parking garage, where she struggled with a recalcitrant door while trying to balance her purse, a shopping bag, a precarious cup of coffee, and a plastic hanger sheath with a red dress within. As the reporter pestered her for a comment, Samantha gamely and repeatedly said, “I have nothing to say,” as though it were a protective mantra shielding her from a demon.
But then the door finally came open, jerking her back, and the beautiful new dress slid off the hanger onto the grimy parking garage floor, with the coffee landing on top of it. To prove that the universe loves synchronicity—whether good or ill—this happened at the exact moment that the reporter asked, “What do you think should happen to your brother?”
And poor Samantha had had enough. Enough of her brother. Enough of the reporters. Enough of the damn dress it had taken her all day to find. She’d kicked the car door and screamed, “There isn’t a hell in the universe hot enough for my [bleep]damned brother! If they wanted to kill him, I’d flip the [bleep]ing switch myself!”
The bleeps, of course, were courtesy of network censors. Obviously, they found her justifiable “mature language” too offensive and shocking for the delicate sensibilities of the same viewers who regularly tuned in to hear details of Billy’s extensive career of raping, torturing, and murdering mostly young women.
“I’ve got some coverage,” Jazz told Howie, “but I need you to backstop.”
“So that Social Services doesn’t go medieval on you,” Howie said, with what he thought was the air of some Far Eastern mystic. “You could solve all of this, you know, with some paperwork….”
Jazz groaned. He didn’t want to have this conversation again. Howie had been bugging him recently about filing the paperwork to become an emancipated minor. It would mean no more looking over his shoulder for Social Services and would give him more latitude in taking care of his grandmother.
“No. We’ve been through this before—”
“You’ve dismissed it before. Not the same thing, bro.”
“You sound like an idiot when you say ‘bro.’ And it’s too complicated. The background checks and interviews alone would have them swooping down on the house. She’d end up in adult care somewhere, and I’d spend my last few months before I hit eighteen in a foster home while the freakin’ emancipation paperwork was still being processed. No, Howie. Forget it. It’s easier just to lay low until I’m eighteen.”
“Well, first of all,” Howie said, ticking off points on his fingers, “I totally sound like Ice-T when I say ‘bro.’ Second of all, it’s still your best move. You can’t keep this up forever.” He gestured to the house, encompassing with that one motion the entire complexity of Jazz’s life.
“I don’t have to. I just have to hold on a little longer. And all you have to do is spell me for a couple of days. Gramma likes you.”
“Usually she likes me,” Howie said darkly. “Sometimes she thinks I’m some kind of giant skeleton come to eat her soul.”
“Sometimes you look like a giant skeleton,” Jazz reminded him.
“Yeah, but the soul-eating part is tough to get over. Very well, then. I will be your Sancho Panza once more.”
“I don’t think that exactly means what you—”
“But there is, of course, the small matter of my babysitting fee to discuss….”
“For God’s sake, Howie! How many more tattoos can you put on me? I’m running out of space!”
“Au contraire, mein freund. You have your legs and your forearms, for example.”
“I’m gonna look like a complete freak by the time you’re done with me. Can you at least make it something cool?”
“A flaming basketball is cool!” Howie protested.
“No. It isn’t. A flaming basketball is cool to a ten-year-old. And Yosemite Sam is only cool in comparison to SpongeBob SquarePants. So, please—think carefully. Something cool.”
Howie folded his unending arms over his sunken chest. “Your words hurt, Jazz. They hurt like cotton balls thrown in my direction. But I’ll consider your request, and by the time you get back from New York, I will be prepared with the kick-assingest of the kick-ass to adorn your form.”
“I can hardly wait.” Maybe, Jazz thought, he should just stay in New York. “Look, it won’t all be on you. My aunt Samantha will be here.”
Howie actually gasped, just like a character in one of those Victorian romance movies, hand to his chest and everything. All he needed to do was say, “Oh, my soul!” to complete the image.
“Samantha? The legendary un-crazy Dent, told of in myth and fables? The only teenage girl to see Billy Dent’s tallywhacker and live to tell the tale? That Samantha?”
Jazz sighed. Not only had he never met her, he’d never spoken to her. He’d found her phone number in Gramma’s address book. Actually, he’d found ten phone numbers, crossed out and written over. The only legible one seemed relatively recent, and the area code was in Indiana, where that reporter had waylaid her. Jazz took a gamble that Gramma had managed to get the phone number right and called.
“Hello?” a tentative female voice had said.
“Is this Samantha Dennis?” She hadn’t married, but she’d changed her name legally years ago.
“Yes.” A note of suspicion. “Who is this? How did you get this number?”
For Jazz, it was a moment of liquid reality, as though the world had begun to melt in places where it usually remained solid. He was speaking to the only flesh and blood he had on the entire planet that wasn’t completely insane. He had no idea how to act. How did people talk to their relatives when their relatives weren’t sociopaths or extreme-level seniles?
“My name is…” He stopped. It seemed too formal. “This is Jazz,” he said. “Jasper, I mean. Your nephew.”
The silence from the other end of the connection burrowed into his brain and seemed to hollow him out from within.
“Jasper,” she said at last, her voice so carefully neutral that even Jazz’s skilled ear couldn’t tell what she was thinking or feeling.