CHAPTER 13
It was a nice summer night outside. The moon had disappeared; the warm breeze was still blowing and the air smelled sweet and clean after the hot smoky atmosphere inside the Top Deck. The cop Bodiford sat across the street in his cruiser watching the kids leave, probably hoping for someone to squeal his tires so he could give him a hard time. Once we had walked down a block and turned off on a residential street all was quiet, and we walked slowly, enjoying the night. I wanted to put my arm around her or hold her hand, but I was afraid of breaking the mood.
We talked about the her job at the Top Deck, and the kids who came there, and the band. She didn't much liked the way the singer did "Hello Mary Lou", not nearly as good as Ricky Nelson. I told her about how I was learning to play the guitar and how I was trying to steal some licks from the guitar player. She said she had taken piano lessons for a couple of years and still knew how to play "The Bluebells of Scotland". I asked her if she sang and she giggled and told me about a song about a toadstool she had sung in a play at school in the first grade. The three blocks to her house went by too fast, and we got to her front porch with all kinds of things left to talk about.
She lived in a white two-story Norman Rockwell house with a lot of shrubbery in the yard and a porch that ran the whole front of the house. A new Chevy station wagon was parked in the driveway. We stood in the gloom of a linden tree at the corner of the porch and gazed into each others' eyes. This was where I should be, this was what I was supposed to be doing. I had a wild desire to tell her how much I loved her and ask her to marry me and tell her I would get a real good job and buy her a house just like this one and a new car and a mink coat and that we could have all the kids she wanted and that I would hire Ricky Nelson to sing at our first wedding anniversary.
"Well, thanks for bringing me home," she said, looking shyly down at the ground.
"Sure. A pleasure."
"I guess I'd better get inside. My Dad'll be waiting for me." But she didn't go anywhere.
"Yeah, I guess..." I said. "Uh..."
"Yes?" she smiled.
"I gotta be going home tomorrow. Back to Chicago."
"Oh, so soon?" She sounded disappointed.
"Yeah. I wish I could stay longer. We barely got to know each other."
"I know."
"Who knows - we might have fallen in love with each other or something," I said, laughing, like it was a joke.
"You never know," she said softly, grinning back at me.
"Maybe I'll see you when I come back for the trial."
"Trial?"
"Yeah, I'm a witness in the Reba Davis murder trail."
"When will that be?"
"Oh, two or three months, I guess."
"That sounds exciting."
"It'll be exciting to see you again."
"Oh, you'll probably forget all about me by then."
"Oh, sure. Like I'll probably forget my own name."
We were silent for a moment.
"Have you got a girl friend back home?" she asked.
"Not really. Nobody special. Nobody as pretty as you."
"Oh, you."
"Nothing like you and Rod."
"Gee, I haven't even seen him in three months."
"That's a long time."
"It sure is."
"If we were engaged I'd find a way to see you."
"But he's in the service."
"I'd escape," I laughed. "I'd miss you too much."
"I'd miss you, too." she said, putting her hand on my arm.
This was it, and before I had a chance to think about it too much I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. She stiffened slightly, as if confused, and then relaxed and melded with me and kissed me back. I stroked her soft hair and put my other arm around her, my fingers memorizing the curves of her body. She was warm and yielding and I felt a little dizzy and had to lean into her to keep my balance. I squeezed her tighter and she squeezed back. Then she pulled away about an inch and caught her breath and blinked. "I'm so confused," she said.
I wasn't. I was in love.
Then she pressed her lips on mine again for an instant, hugged me hard, and ran into the house. When she was inside she turned and gave me a little wave. Then she closed the door and was gone.
My face was hot and my lips were burning and I was breathing like I'd just done a 100 yard dash. I wanted to go home and get my guitar and stand outside her window and sing silly love songs to her all night. I stood staring at her house for a while and then remembered where I was and took off running back to the Top Deck.
I had no idea how long I'd been gone, and I hoped Ricky and Kenny hadn't left me.
But everything was cool - except me, that is - and they were sitting on Kenny's hood outside the Top Deck talking to some guys. I ran up, out of breath.
"Hey, how'dja do?" Kenny hollered.
"I just walked her home, man. No big deal."
"Roger might think it's a big deal."
"You wouldn't tell Roger," Ricky said in mock horror.
"No," Kenny said. "I'll just ask him if he knows."
They all laughed at this; thought it was real funny. They gave me shit all the way home, but I didn't care, I felt too good.
I could still smell her perfume on my shirt when I got home, and I hung it on the bedpost. I relived over and over in my mind
the way she'd felt in my arms, the taste of her hot lips... I lay in bed half the night searching the radio dial for love songs, and when I fell asleep I dreamed of her.
Grandpa had already been to the gas station to get a fill-up. I thought that was funny - making a special trip just to get gas. Geez, you could get gas on the way out of town. He liked to get an early start. It was about an eight hour drive, and Grandma didn't like to drive at night.
I went down to the rock in Debbie's yard to say good-bye to her; she couldn't come over to the house, G&G would have a fit if I brought a girl over. She had on cut-off jeans and an oversized red plaid shirt with the tail tied together around her waist.
I hated to say good-bye to her. I hated to leave at all, right in the middle of this murder mystery that I was enmeshed in. But even so, I had been so depressed about Nick and Reba that I felt like I needed to get back to a more normal life. When I wasn't dreaming about Shauna or Debbie I was having nightmares about killers and Mafia hit men and drug dealers, and I was wondering ominously who would be the next to die. Well, right there was one of the advantages to being a kid, the decision was out of my hands.
At least I had something to look forward to back home that might take my mind off Calhoun, city of death. I was signed up for this baseball camp that I went to every summer. A bunch of coaches from the area high schools put it together. They showed us how to play and organized everybody into teams and we had our own little World Series and everything. It was pretty neat, and I didn't want to miss it.
And I was anxious to get back with the guy I had bought my guitar from and continue my lessons. I almost had the C Am F G chord progression figured out, and I couldn't wait to play it with another guitar player.
"Are you going to miss me?" she asked. She was chewing her gum, and she tilted her pretty head sideways and ran a finger up my forearm, giving me shivers.
I said I might miss her a little and she said I'd better miss her more than a little, so I promised I would. Then she gave me a class picture of herself from last year, signed with some X's and O's on the back, and her address and told me I'd better write her. I wasn't much on letter writing, but I'd make it a point to drop her a line or two. She gave me a kiss, one of those rabid-teenager kisses that your could feel clear down to your auricles, and I floated home singing "Goodnight My Love".
Ricky and Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathryn came over to see us off. They always watched the house when G&G were gone. Ricky said he'd call me the minute anything broke on the mystery.
I told him to keep an eye on Debbie and Shauna and he just laughed sarcastically and said he's keep an eye on all the girls. Kathryn hugged me and Bill said to give 'em hell at the baseball camp. Then we were off to Chicago.
When we got out on the open road Grandpa fired up his pipe and we settled in for the ride, me in front fiddling with the radio, trying to find new stations, and Grandma in back with the fried chicken. G&G didn't like rock'n'roll, but they would usually let me get it on the radio for fifty or sixty miles or so before they made me turn it off for a while. I found a Red's game on WLW halfway to Indianapolis and we listened to that until it faded out.
Man, what a crazy summer it had been. Things were usually a lot calmer in Calhoun; I would just hang around the house building models and watching TV. Grandpa would take me fishing and I'd go to a Red's game with Uncle Bill and Ricky. We'd go see Aunt Eva. G&G never let me out much, and the only pal I'd ever had was Ricky. The only time I'd ever see Nick was at the drag strip, and Debbie was just a distant teenage dream.
Well, I was a man now, I thought proudly to myself. I'd had my first girl, and I'd seen a side of life that I'd known only from TV and movies. Yeah, I felt very grown-up. But my new maturity didn't give me a clue about what was going on in Nick's head when he shot Siri. He had to know he couldn't get away with it. Hell, even if the bodyguards didn't get him, the cops would. To just walk up and shoot a guy like that... Man, I could never do that. But, then, I hadn't grown up like he had. I pictured my little sister, sweet and innocent now at ten years old, screwing sailors in some back room in a few years and I guessed I could see how Nick would have a real different outlook on things that I did.
And Ol' Man Davis -
now there was an amoral, low-life bastard if there ever was one. Living like a pig, gambling, robbing, murdering his own step-daughter. Maybe people like him just act on instinct, like an animal, and do anything it takes to survive.
I wondered what Shauna was doing today. I could picture her in her bedroom writing a letter to her boyfriend in the service. She probably had a bed with a canopy and frilly curtains on the windows and a bunch of dolls from her childhood arranged around on the furniture and pictures of Ricky Nelson on the walls. It was weird that she lived in the same world with people like Vito Siri and Otis Davis.
And what about Debbie? I could see her popping her gum and twirling her pony tail talking on the phone to some guy making a date to go dancing. I wondered if she would miss me? Hell, sure she would. We had this bond, this business with Reba's murder. That's the kind of thing you remember and talk about together when you get older. I imagined us as an old married couple in our rocking chairs telling our grandchildren about the murders way back in the summer of 1963.
It was always a big deal when I got back from Calhoun and Mom had my favorite, pizza with pepperoni, for dinner and my little sister had a card she had made with cardboard and crayons welcoming me back home and Dad showed me the tickets to the double-header at Wrigley Field for Sunday. It was real great to see them all again, and it made the events in Calhoun seem long ago and far away.