CHAPTER 11
"Just what the hell are you kids doin' out here?" It was the big cop who had shot Dover, Cletus. He looked really irritated, the way my Dad would look when I brought home a D in history or wore a shirt he didn't approve of, like I did it just to make him mad. He hitched up his pants and glared down at us.
"Uh, we were just on our way home, officer," Kenny mumbled, red-faced.
"Is this your vehicle?"
"Yes, sir."
"Lemmee see your driver's license and registration."
Kenny showed him the documents and Cletus examined them with his flashlight.
"Don't you know any better than to get in the middle of a police operation?"
"Well, uh, I'm sorry, sir." Kenny was sweating and shuffling his feet in the gravel of the gas station parking lot. "We just wanted to see what was going on."
Then Cletus asked the rest of us for our names and he wrote them down in his little notebook, chewing on his lip as he scrawled with his pencil. He lectured us a little more and then hollered at another cop to give us a ride home. I had never ridden in a cop car before, so it was kind of neat listening to the calls on the radio and checking things out. I felt trapped in the back seat; there were no handles on the inside of the doors. The cop was a young guy with floppy ears and a uniform that was a little too big for him. His name was Futch, and it turned out that Ricky went to school with his little brother, so they struck up a friendship and he filled us in on what was happening.
"It was a drug arrest," Futch said as we drove down the Old River Road to Calhoun.
"No shit?" Ricky said. He was up front with Sherry; I was in the back with Debbie and Kenny.
"Yeah, the Caretakers were in it with a guy named Vito Siri over in Covington who was killed last night." Futch seemed pretty proud of his knowledge.
"Yeah!" Ricky said. "We knew Siri."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. He's been hangin' around Calhoun lately."
"What was he doin' there?"
"Guy owed him some money."
"That's a bad guy to owe money to."
"Yeah. The guy's in jail for murder, now."
"Oh, you must be talkin' about Otis Davis."
"Yeah, killed his step-daughter."
"Jesus."
"So howdjou guys find out about the Caretakers?"
"When Siri was killed last night the officers found a trunk load of heroin in his car."
"Holy shit!"
"His driver told them he got it from the Caretakers. He didn't want to take the rap all by himself."
"Guy named Lanny something."
"Didn't get the name, but I heard he was pretty scared. Ready to spill everything." The cop was eyeing Debbie in the rear view mirror. "They found some marihuana, too."
"Geez, where were they gettin' all that stuff?"
"Brought it up from Mexico on their bikes. They were selling it in quantity to Siri, and he was getting rid of it on the street."
Wow! So the Caretakers and Siri were in the drug business together! I didn't know much about dope, but they told us in health class that smoking marihuana led straight to the doors of hell.
Once you started smoking it you couldn't stop and soon you were a raving addict, willing to do anything for a joint, and they showed us an old black and white movie called "Reefer Madness" which was supposed to scare us. Heroin was supposed to be something beatniks and jazz musicians in New York City took. I wouldn't have thought they had any around Calhoun.
The cop dropped Kenny off at his house and then took the rest of us over to Debbie's. He still had his eye on Debbie as we got out of his car. What the hell was that Dumbo-eared dork looking at? He was ten years older than Debbie, and she was under age.
Debbie's parents were out for the evening and we all went downstairs to the basement. It was all fixed up with a ping pong table and shuffleboard and a bunch of old chairs and a record player. Debbie's dad was pretty handy around the house and he had done all the work - paneling and acoustical tile and all that. He even had a little refrigerator and we all got Cokes and flopped down on the furniture. Debbie's sister, Donna, was "in charge" while their parents were gone, but she was pretty cool. Like, she didn't make a big deal about being a year older than Debbie, or anything, and she just said hi when we all came in. She was busy watching "The Tonight Show" in the living room and ironing. They had a new host for that show, a guy named Johnny Carson. My Mom liked the old guy, Jack Paar, and she didn't think this new guy wouldn't last too long.
"Well, whaddya think now, Cuz?" Ricky asked. He was settled down on the old sofa, one hand on Sherry's leg and the other hand searching the radio dial. A Peter, Paul, and Mary song came on and he switched stations and got "Little Deuce Coupe", which was a lot better.
"Man, this thing gets more confusing all the time," I said. I was in an old red overstuffed chair with Debbie sitting on the floor between my legs. My hand was under her hair, softly stroking the back of her neck. "You think this drug business has anything to do with the murders?"
"Tell me, and we'll both know," Ricky said.
"Have you ever smoked any marihuana?" Sherry asked.
"Aahh, once or twice," Ricky said with a wave of his hand, like it was nothing. "Didn't do much for me." Ricky had read a couple of William Burroughs books and thought he knew all about dope.
"Really? I heard it makes you sick," Debbie said, sounding impressed.
"Naw. They just tell ya that in school. Heroin might make ya sick."
"God, have you tried that, too?" Debbie asked, shocked.
"Hell, no. That's bad stuff. But I know some guys who do it."
"Who?"
"Some musicians over in Covington. A lot of jazz musicians shoot heroin."
"I never heard of anybody around here taking drugs," Sherry said.
"Me, neither," Debbie said.
I knew Nick's sister had been an addict, but I
hadn't said anything about it. Maybe now that Nick was gone it wouldn't matter if I did. They'd told us in health class that prostitutes took drugs, and I felt vaguely surprised to find that it was really true.
"Maybe Carol found out they were dealing drugs and wanted in on it," Ricky said. "Maybe she wanted a cut of the profits or she'd turn them in so Vito killed her. Or had her killed."
"Not very smart, if that's what she was doing," I said.
"No," Ricky admitted. "Hey, maybe she was stealing some of the drugs and selling them on her own. Or..." he cocked an eyebrow at me, "maybe she was using, herself!"
What the hell, I thought. Can't make any difference now. "Yeah, could be. Nick told me once that he thought she might be on drugs."
"He did? When?"
"Oh, I dunno. The other night."
"Hell, you oughtta be arrested for concealing evidence."
"I forgot about it, didn't think it was important," I said lamely.
"Surely Reba wasn't in on this drug thing," Sherry said.
"No way!" Debbie said vehemently.
"I wonder if Nick knew about Siri and the Caretakers dealing drugs," I said. "He never said anything to me about drugs."
"We did see him at Mandrake's the other night," Ricky said.
"When was that?" Sherry asked.
"Night of the drag race. Monday."
"He was probably just hanging out," I said.
"Never seen him hangin' out with them before," Ricky said.
"OK, we've got the murders solved," I said. "The Ol' Man killed Reba to keep her from squealin' about the saloon robbery and Siri killed Carol to keep her quiet about the drugs."
"So you don't think there's a connection between the two murders?" Debbie asked.
"Well, yeah, there still could be a connection, but we just don't know what it is yet. Drugs, Caretakers, Vito, whatever," Ricky said.
"Maybe Ol' Man Davis was in on the drug dealing," I said.
"I doubt it," Ricky said.
"Yeah, you're right. Siri wouldn't have that old drunk working for him."
"This is too confusing for me," Sherry sighed, putting her head on Ricky's shoulder.
"Yeah, it is," Ricky said. "What we need is a witness, if there's one left. Hell, there's four dead people, maybe five, if Dover buys it. I bet someone knows something. Dover, or Lanny, or the Ol' Man."
I agreed with Sherry; this was too confusing for me, too. I needed to get my mind off it for a while, so when the Flamingo's "I Only Have Eyes For You," the best make-out song ever recorded, came on I got Debbie up to dance. We moved oh-so-slowly to the rhythm of the song, pressed up tight against each other, thigh to thigh, chest to breast. She nipped at my neck with her little white teeth, sending shivers down my back, and I began to feel a little more romantic that I had in the car. By the time the record was over we were on the sofa over in the corner with the lights turned way down low. Ricky and Sherry were wrapped up in each other, too, and the radio kept playing love songs...
"Congrats, Cuz," Ricky smirked, hitting me on the shoulder.
"Hey, you were doin' pretty good yourself," I laughed, hitting him back.
"Sherry loves it."
"So do I."
"I told ya you could score with Debbie."
"Yeah, well..." I still hadn't told him about the other time with her.
"Heh, heh. I'm proud of ya. I knew ya had it in ya."
"Hey, I had it in her!"
"Ha!"
We smoked in silence for a while.
"So how do you think all this is gonna turn out?" I mused. Things had been happening bang, bang, bang, and I wondered what was next.
"Weird, ain't it?" he answered. "So much shit goin' on? The Ol' Man looks like a goner. He'll go back to prison."
"What'll his family do?"
"Hell, they got along without him before."
"Man, that's so fucked up about Nick."
"Yeah. He was one cool guy. Wouldn't think he'd end up like that."
"He had a pretty rough home life before he moved here. Parents split up and all that." I
never did mention that Nick had told me Carol had been a hooker, but I got the idea that Ricky suspected that she was more than just a little loose, especially now that it was out that she had been on drugs.
"Yeah. 'S'what I hear. Mom and his Aunt Velma are pretty buddy-buddy." I also got the idea that Ricky was a little jealous of the close relationship I'd had with Nick.
"I guess if Siri really did kill Carol they'll never prove it now."
"Not unless something comes out of this drug thing with the Caretakers," Ricky said. He flipped his butt into the air and it arced halfway across the dark street and landed in a small explosion of sparks and glowing ashes. "There'll probably be a trial with the Caretakers and some of Siri's guys. Something could come out then."
"I wonder how Dover's doin'."
"Looked bad, didn't he?"
A car came down the street and we moved back into the shadows of the trees in my front yard, away from the light of the street light. It was only Mr. Fields from he next block in his rusty old Hudson. He was some kind of a traveling salesman and had irregular hours. I'd heard that he came home from Indiana one night about four in the morning and caught his wife in bed with her best friend - a woman! I wondered if he was in for any surprises tonight.
"You don't think Nick was selling dope, do you?" I asked.
"Nah, that wasn't his scene."
That made me feel better. "Yeah, you're right. He might drink a few beers... but that's all."
"Yeah. Nick wasn't a hood. He wasn't a dope dealer."
It wasn't that I didn't like spending time with G & G. They were two of the nicest people in the world. I would go down in the basement with Grandpa and fool around with his short wave radio, or talk baseball with him, or listen to his stories about when he was a telegrapher and traveled all around the country - this had been before he was married, and he couldn't tell these stories when Grandma was around. It sounded like he'd had some kind of fun in those rooming houses and saloons. He had been the telegrapher on duty in Topeka when the news came in about the Titanic going down and was the first to tap it out to that part of the country. He had met President Harding and Charles Lindbergh and had seen Rogers Hornsby play in 1922 in St. Louis, the year he led the Majors in home runs with 42.
Grandma was a real homebody; she didn't like to go out much. She liked to cook and clean house and mess around in her garden. In the evening after dinner when the weather was nice she liked to sit on the porch and watch the sun set and look at her old photo albums or knit or drink iced tea with Mrs. Cowan from next door. She had some great pictures of her and Grandpa taken way back when they were just married. Old, cracked, brown pictures that looked like Matthew Brady photos from the Civil War. Every summer when it was time for me to go back home she would hug me and tell me how much she was going to miss me. One summer when I was about nine I drew a life-size picture of myself on cardboard and then cut it out and made a stand for it so it would stand up, I told her it would be just like having me there. She still had it, and she liked to show it to everyone who came over.
Like I said, they were two of the nicest people in the world, but really out of touch with what was going on these days and too over-protective. They didn't like rock'n'roll, of course, or hot rods, and they hadn't been to a movie in years. They thought John Kennedy was just a rich kid, too young to be President, though Grandpa liked Jackie. Said she had a lot of class. They didn't know what the NAACP was trying to do in Mississippi, and they thought the space exploration program was a waste of taxpayer's money. Their values and mores were rooted in the American middle class ethics of the early part of the century and they didn't give much of a damn about anything that had happened since Truman had gone back to Independence in 1952.
And Grandma was always warning me about girls. She said they were all just out for your money, and that the best thing I could do was to stay away from them. Ha! Fat chance of that happening, Granny! I'll live dangerously, take my chances. I had bought Debbie a few burgers and enough cherry Cokes to swamp the Tiki (Gardner McKay's schooner), but I couldn't feature her weaseling my $500 savings bond that I had in the bank in Chicago away from me.
So, on Thursday I went to Woody's with Grandma and carried her stuff back for her and then helped Grandpa change the oil in his "machine." He was real particular about his car. He changed the oil every three thousand miles and kept all kinds of spare parts in the trunk. He said it was especially important to always have a spare fan belt on hand. I thought it was especially important to always have a spare girl on hand.
I heard about the bust on the news. Eleven Caretakers in all had been arrested and charged with various things - resisting arrest, possession of firearms, parole violations. Didn't say anything about drugs, though, and I wondered why. Damn, what a bunch of criminals. Dover was still alive, surprisingly. He had a couple of broken bones and severe lacerations and abrasions, and, of course, the bullet wound, and they were wondering if he would ever walk again, but he was in stable condition in intensive care. G & G would go ape if they knew I had been around last night when all this came down, so I acted dumb, like I hadn't ever heard of the Caretakers, when Grandpa shook his head at the news and wondered what the hell was wrong with kids these days. Siri and his organization weren't mentioned, and I wondered if the connection between him and the Caretakers was being hushed up.
After lunch I worked on my model for a little while and then went out on the back porch and whanged away on my guitar until the little E string broke. I didn't have a spare, either. I'd get Grandpa to run me over to the music store in Bloomburg later to get one. I knew if he played guitar he would have plenty of spare strings on hand.
Dad called after dinner, and it was like a call from another world, reminding me that I had a past life that I would be returning to soon. Everything at home was fine; my little sister was learning to roller skate, the weather had been hot, Mom was getting new curtains for my room, Dad had tickets for the double header at Wrigley Field with the Cards next weekend. When I was real little I used to get homesick when Dad would call. I remember once, Grandma hugging me and rocking me in the rocking chair and saying I was homesick. I had never heard that word before and I wondered if I had a temperature or spots on my face, or what.
I didn't' really mind staying home that night; Thursday was my favorite TV night, and I watched "Ozzie and Harriet," "Donna Reed," "Leave it to Beaver," "My Three Sons," and "McHale's Navy." Nobody ever died in those shows, not even in "McHale's Navy", and they were in a goddamn war. Ricky came over with some carrots from his Mom's garden and watched McHale with me. Gruber was his favorite character, the con man who was always running some scam and getting McHale and Parker in trouble with Capt. Binghamton, and Ricky said he learned a lot from watching him.
I was going home Saturday, so tomorrow would be my last day in Calhoun. This had been some weird vacation, and if I'd had a car I'd probably have jumped in it and headed for Chicago that night. I didn't want to go to Nick's funeral tomorrow; everybody would be wearing that same look, that dismal funeral face I was becoming so familiar with, and afterwards Debbie and Sherry and Ricky and I would talk meaninglessly to each other and wonder what it was all about.
I thought about Shauna as I got ready for bed. She seemed somehow apart from all this mess, above it all, unsullied by the sinister malevolence. She hadn't really known any of the dead people, and their deaths hadn't really touched her like they had us. Whores and drugs and motorcycle gangs and murder weren't part of her world and I was looking forward to basking, reprehensibly, in her virtue and freshness tomorrow night. I went to bed feeling like I'd aged years since I'd arrived in Calhoun a week and a half ago.