CHAPTER 16
Debbie was having a little get-together at her house in my honor that night, so Ricky and I went over about 7:30. I had on my new sharkskin slacks and a V-neck sweater that I got when I bought my new blazer. The weather was cool, with clouds moving eerily across the sky. Leaves swirled crisply around our ankles as we walked; we could see the lights of the refinery through the black leafless trees. Thanksgiving was coming up, and some of the porches had little gourd-and-corn husk decorations set up. The Davis's didn't have anything on their porch but an old washing machine and a gutted sofa and a rotting carved pumpkin left over from Halloween. I wondered how their Thanksgiving would be, now that the Ol' Man was gone.
Debbie's Mom answered when we knocked on the door. She was a talkative, friendly Mom, wearing a red and white checked apron and fuzzy slippers. She ushered us into the house, which smelled of fresh-baked cookies, asking us about school and our parents and how my trip was and how G & G were getting on. She followed us down the stairs to the basement with a tray of Fritos and potato chips.
Debbie and Sherry were sitting cross-legged on the floor popping their gum and picking out records, making two stacks. They both had on oversized shirts and blue jeans. Debbie had on a little more eyeliner than she had the night before. I liked it.
"Hi, guys," she said perkily. She could be perky.
"Hi, girls," Ricky said. He went over and gave Sherry a kiss on the cheek.
"Hi, my guy," she said, looking up at him lovingly.
"Tell us about the trial. How did it go?" Debbie asked eagerly.
"Found him guilty," Ricky said.
"Yeah, we heard." Debbie said. "Did he go nuts and try to escape or anything?"
"Flopped down on the floor with his Bible hollering that he was innocent," I said.
"O-o-o," Sherry said, frowning.
We heard noises upstairs; more kids were arriving.
"Hey, let's get the music going," Ricky said, picking up "Lovers Who Wander."
"Go ahead," Sherry said, and Ricky fired up the record player.
I sat down on the floor next to Debbie and blew lightly on the back of her neck while she picked out records.
"Oooh, that tickles," she said, squirming away from me.
"'S'posed to," I said.
"Here, put these on and behave yourself" she said, handing me a stack of records and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.
Kenny was there, and some other kids from school. When they got downstairs they all wanted to hear about the trial, and Ricky
made it sound like I was the star witness.
Debbie's older sister, Donna, showed up later with her date, and damn if it wasn't Lanny Pritkin, Vito Siri's driver! What was Donna doing with him?
"Ricky!" I hissed in his ear. "Look!"
He turned and followed my gaze. "Wow! What's he doin' here?"
"What? Who?" Debbie asked.
"That guy with Donna," I said. "You know who he is?"
"Lanny somebody. Donna's been out with him once or twice. Why?"
"What happened to Loren?" I asked.
"Oh, Donna's not seeing him anymore," Debbie said.
"Well, she'd be better off with him. Lanny was workin' for that Vito Siri guy," I said.
"Who was?" Sherry had come over and wanted to know what we were whispering about.
"Lanny," Debbie said. "The guy Donna's
been dating."
"Oooh, he's a creep. I don't like him," Sherry said, making a face.
"Yeah, he was Siri's driver," I said. "And he's the guy Nick almost got into that fight with."
"Oh, the night Reba was murdered?" Sherry asked.
"Yeah."
"How the hell did Donna get mixed up with him?" Ricky asked.
"I don't know how she met him. She just showed up with him one night, about a week ago," Debbie said.
"He's been outta town, I heard," Ricky said.
"My God, Donna'll flip out," Debbie said, frowning.
"He looks like a criminal." Sherry said. "Nasty looking."
"He probably is a criminal," I said.
"If Nick didn't like him, that's enough for me," Debbie said.
"Yeah, he was there at the club when Nick shot Siri," Ricky said.
"Oh, wow!" Debbie said.
"And he goes to court in a couple of weeks on drug charges with some of the Caretakers," Ricky said.
"Oh, God," Debbie moaned.
Nobody else seemed to know who Lanny was, as Donna introduced him around, so we played it cool and didn't say anything. His blonde hair, greased back, featured a spit curl that dangled over his forehead, and you could just about see his mustache when the light hit it just right. His wore a smirk on his face, and he smoked Kools and nibbled on a silver flask that he had hidden inside his black leather coat when nobody was looking.
It was supposed to be a party, but it was more like a wake. The conversation kept coming back to Reba and the trial. Everybody had a story to tell about the time they did this or went there with Reba or Nick. Everyone agreed that the Ol'Man was a creep, always had been, and deserved to be back in prison.
It was a school night, and kids began drifting off early. Lanny didn't have to worry about school, and he started to get drunk and run off at the mouth. He announced to those of us who were still there that he had worked for Vito Siri, and said that he had been Vito's right-hand man and that Vito never made a move without asking his advice. Yeah, sure, I thought. Vito probably asked him when it was time to change the oil in the Lincoln.
Ricky and Sherry were in a dark corner giggling and playing kissy face. "What a fucking clown," he mouthed to me behind Sherry's back, pointing to Lanny. I agreed with him. More kids began to leave.
Then Ricky stood up. "See ya later," he said. "Got better things to do," he leered at me, clutching Sherry. They waved and went up the stairs with their arms wrapped around each other.
That left just Lanny and me at the opposite ends of the sofa with Debbie and Donna between us. I was wondering how I could get Debbie alone when Lanny said:
"Lishen, I'll tellya sump'm dint come out at the trial today." He had a high strident voice. The last record in the stack, "Be My Baby," ended and the basement was silent.
"What, Lanny?" Donna said in a bored voice. She had been exchanging glances with Debbie that said: "How do I get rid of this creep?" for the last twenty minutes.
"Reba was workin' for Vito. She sure as hell was!" He accented this pronouncement with a sharp downward jerk of his pointy chin.
"What do you mean?" Donna asked.
Yeah, what the hell, I thought. Reba working for Vito? Doing what?
Lanny lit another cigarette casually, grinning. Glad to be the center of attention, even though his audience had dwindled considerably. "She was hookin', what else?" He smiled smugly and took another hit from his flask. It was out in the open, now, he didn't care who saw it. "She was usin' another name, but I recognized her the night I drove Vito over to see Ol' Man Davis. I never forget a face. Or a set of tits." He giggled and took a drag off his cigarette.
Hooking? Reba? Couldn't be! A cold fury swept over me and I wanted to smash Lanny's leering face in. Debbie and Donna gawked at him in disbelief. He gazed coolly back at us.
"No, Lanny you must be mistaken," Donna said icily. "I knew Reba. She wasn't like that."
"No mistake, girl. I even had her once myself."
That did it. Donna hopped up from the sofa, spilling the potato chips. "You creep!" she said through clenched teeth, her eyes blazing.
"Hey, wait a minute..." Lanny said.
Donna was furious. "Get out of my house!"
"Hey..." Lanny muttered, struggling awkwardly to his feet. "I dint mean ta piss ya off or nothin'."
Donna's pretty face was flushed and her fists were balled up. She was ready to do a number on him, and Debbie was ready to back her up. Which put me at the end of the line. And I
wanted the first shot at him myself.
"Get out," Donna hissed in his face. Debbie and I moved up next to her and a scared look crossed Lanny's face.
"OK, OK," he said, turning toward the stairs and stumbling over the rug. I grabbed the collar of his jacket and helped him get a fix on the bottom step and he twisted around and whined: "Hey, don' tell no one I toldja 'bout her, huh? Vito din' wan' it ta get out, y'know? Her bein' under age and all." He looked scared.
"Vito's dead," I said.
"Yeah, but his cousin's runnin' things now," he said, making a grab at the handrail to keep from falling. "Big Tony." He'd suddenly realized he'd been talking too much.
"Hey," I said, grabbing his shoulder to steady him and looking into his eyes. "Did Nick know she was hooking?" I dreaded the answer. I knew what it would be. But I had to hear it.
"Yeah, man. He knew. I said sump'm 'bout it to him that night at Davis's. He acted like it was big news to him, got all pissed off. Thought I was gonna haf ta take him down. Heh, heh."
So Reba was a whore and Nick knew about it!
I had my fist drawn back, but Donna grabbed my arm and pleaded, "Just get him out of here, please. My Mother'll have a cow if you have a fight down here."
I don't suppose knocking him around would have helped Nick or Reba very much, but it would've made me feel better. By the time I got him to the top of the stairs and out the door without attracting any parental attention I decided he was too drunk to beat on.
"Who the fuck are you, anyway?" he said, shaking free of my grip when we were out on the porch. He straightened his jacket and glared at me and I drew back to smack him one, but he turned real quick and hopped unsteadily down the stairs off the porch. When he was safely out on the sidewalk he gave me the finger and told me to get fucked and weaved off toward Ev's saloon. I would have gone after him, but Debbie and Donna grabbed me.
Donna was about mad enough to chew the furniture and we all went back down the basement. The girls flopped down on the sofa and Debbie looked up at me, her eyes wide, shaking her head slowly back and forth.
"Goddamn, was Lanny telling the truth?" she asked in a faraway voice. I'd never hear her swear like that before.
"I don't know." I said.
"I can't believe Reba would do that," Debbie said. "God, a prostitute!"
"I can't believe it, either," Donna said.
They thought prostitution was about the worst thing that could happen to a girl, and I didn't think too much of it, either, when it involved a nice girl like Reba. Someone I knew. Man, what if Ginger had really set us up with some girls that night at Vito's and Reba had been one of them!
"Maybe that's why the Ol' Man killed her, because he found out about her," Debbie said.
"Yeah, maybe." I mulled that thought over and decided that I didn't really think the Ol' Man would give a rat's ass if his step-daughter was hooking, but I didn't think Debbie would understand that. Hell, at least Reba was working, maybe bringing in a little money. That's the way the Ol' Man would figure it. I still thought he killed her because he was afraid she was going to rat on him about the robbery.
I sat down on the sofa between the girls. "Y'know," I said, "Lanny said he recognized Reba the night he drove Siri over to Davis's house. The night she was killed. The night Nick beat up the Ol' Man. I remember Reba was sitting on the front porch when they drove up, and she ran inside when she saw them."
"She was afraid they would recognize her?"
"Hell, yes. Lanny said she was using a different name, and Vito probably didn't know who she was or where she lived. He didn't know she was Ol'Man Davis's daughter."
"Wow! She must have flipped out when she saw them driving up to her house."
"No kidding!"
I thought of Reba sitting demurely on her front porch waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up for a date and then seeing her pimp drive up in his Lincoln. Must have been Panicsville.
"And something else," I said. "We were wondering what Nick and Lanny had to say to each other that night, remember?"
"Yeah," Debbie said.
"Well, according to what Lanny said tonight, that's when Nick found out Reba was hooking."
"Oh, God. How awful!"
"No wonder Nick looked mad."
"He must have been ready to kill Lanny."
"Yeah, no kidding. Lanny was lucky that night."
We all sat silently for a few minutes, contemplating this strange turn of events, and then Donna looked at her watch and said goodnight and went upstairs.
An idea was starting to from in my head...
"Oooh, how could you do that with men you didn't even know?" Debbie said, shivering. "It's so creepy."
"Do what?" I was thinking, wasn't paying attention.
"You know what. That. What Reba was doing."
"Oh, yeah."
"It's creepy."
Yeah, just horrible. "Speaking of creepy, I'd like to creep all over you, you cute little creature, you," I said, sliding an arm around her.
"Ooh," she squeaked, settling back in my arms and letting me kiss her.
We were just getting comfortable when her Mom called to us from upstairs, asking us if we knew how late it was getting.
"Aah, tell her we don't want any," I joked.
"OK, Mom," Debbie hollered, making a face at me. "See you tomorrow, OK,?" she said. Her eyes were half closed, and her lips were parted slightly.
"Sure," I said. I managed to get up off the sofa without embarrassing myself, thanked her and then her Mom for such a nice evening, and went home to think things out.
G & G were getting ready for bed, but Grandma got me some angel food cake and a glass of milk before she went upstairs. I told her I was going to watch a little TV, and she said not to stay up too late.
There was a Humphrey Bogart movie on, and I settled down on the sofa with my grub. There was Bogie, probably the baddest cat in the world, telling some punk who was giving him some shit that people lose teeth talking like. But my mind wasn't on the movie.
So Reba had been a whore. Damn, who woulda thunk it? Well, look at the family she came from. A drunken ex-con for a step-father, a mother who didn't care about her, dirty kids all over the place, a run-down, trashy house. She was supposed to have a brother somewhere in prison, too. I wonder why she did it? For money? How could she be that desperate? After all, she had Nick. Everybody figured they'd get married some day. Jesus, Nick must have been ready to - to kill her? Did Nick kill her when he found out what she was?
A cold chill went through me as I pondered that cheerless thought. Nick's mother had been, if not
a prostitute, then something pretty close to it. When he caught his sister Carol with her pimp he'd beaten them both up and got himself arrested. Nick was a violent guy. Had he freaked out and killed Reba that night when he found out from Lanny that she was selling it? I guess it made sense. And then he'd gone and killed Siri, too. Not just because Carol was working for him, but because Reba was, too. He was probably getting the gun from Dover the night we saw his car parked at the Caretaker's hangout.
But it couldn't be. We had all seen Nick bring Reba home that night. Had he killed her in the house and then come back later and taken her to the gravel pit? That didn't jive. Someone would have seen him. Like me.
I finished my milk and cake and carried the dish and the glass out to the kitchen and put them in the sink. The cake had suddenly begun to taste like cardboard. I rinsed my mouth out with water and went out onto the back porch, being careful not to let the door slam, and sat down in the old swing. It was quiet out, and getting colder. But I had been cold inside the house. I could see the moon intermittently as clouds scudded past it. The Davis house next door was dark. I wished I had a cigarette.
Maybe Reba had already been dead when Nick brought her home. Maybe he had killed her somewhere and then just propped her up in the front seat for anybody to see who happened to be looking. I remember her sitting there staring straight ahead. And then he had driven around back, where it was so dark. I looked over in Davis's back yard now. Couldn't see a thing. He could have left her body back there somewhere.
Was I making any sense? This was Nick Palladino I was talking about, not some crummy hood like Lanny or Dover. I tried to put myself in his place. How would I feel? Would I kill, say, Shauna, if I found out she was a hooker? Would I even hit her? Would I lose my temper and accidentally kill her without meaning to? Nick was a powerful guy, and he could kill a petite little girl like Reba by mistake.
I had seen the Ol' Man driving away later. What about that? Well... Nick could have walked back, put Reba's body in the station wagon and driven her to the gravel pit, dumped her off, and driven the station wagon back and sneaked off back to his car, wherever he'd parked it. After all, I hadn't been able to see who was actually driving the station wagon.
I was freezing my ass off, so I went back inside and flopped down on the sofa. Bogie and another guy had guns pointed at each other, but I wasn't worried about Bogie. We needed a guy like him to figure this out.
I thought of the Ol' Man in jail. Maybe for a crime he didn't commit. Should I tell the cops what I knew? But what did I know? That Nick killed Reba? I had no proof. The look on his face and the sound of his voice in the car the night he took me home from the Top Deck was no proof. They would tell me my imagination was running away with me, that I had been watching too much TV.
But the Ol' Man was in jail because of my testimony at the trial. Aah, there had been other witnesses. I had been the only one to see the station wagon driving away, but Reba's diary had been more damning than my evidence. How the Ol' Man had threatened to kill Reba when she caught him with the money from the saloon robbery. Thus establishing the motive for the murder. So it wasn't my fault any more than anybody else's if he was in jail for something he didn't do. Hell, he'd be in jail anyway for he robbery. He had been on probation. I had just told what I saw. It wasn't my fault if the jury came to the wrong decision.
So who now knew that Reba Davis had been a hooker? Only Debbie. Donna, Lanny, and me, I guess. Reba had been a nice girl, I don't care what she did. I still liked her. Maybe she had reasons for doing what she did. Maybe the Ol' Man even made her do it. Who knows? It wouldn't do any good to tell the whole world about it.
Bogie was tied up, and a girl was helping him smoke a cigarette. Then he talked her into letting him go, and pretty soon the whole mystery was cleared up and the bad guys were either shot full of holes or in the hands of the cops and I wished our little mystery would have a nice neat ending like that. I turned off the TV and went up and got ready for bed.
There was a nagging question way back in my head that had been scratching around in there since the wild idea that Nick had killed Reba occurred to me. It was bothering me more now as I lay in bed listening to the radio. "Mean Woman Blues" by Roy Orbison came on. I drummed my fingers on my chest in time to it, trying not to think about it. The weather came on; cool tomorrow, chance of snow the next day. I didn't care about the snow; I'd be gone by then. I wondered what the weather was like at home. Probably colder. The nagging question wouldn't leave me. "Mickey's Monkey" by the Miracles came on. Man, Debbie could dance the hell outta the Monkey. I wished I could go to sleep, so I wouldn't have to answer that nagging question. But I would have to face it sooner or later. The question was... who killed Carol Palladino. The answer was... Nick?
The next morning at breakfast things looked better as I drank my fresh orange juice and scarfed down my eggs and bacon. I must have been in a weird mood last night to come up with that story about Nick killing Carol and Reba, and I blamed it on that Humphrey Bogart movie. Nick was a cool guy, not some psychopathic killer, and he wouldn't kill his sister and his girl friend. Man, that's crazy.
Like I'd figured before, there were plenty of people who had more of a motive to kill Carol than Nick had. Hell, prostitutes must have a pretty hight mortality rate, anyway, right up there with lumberjacks and escaped Nazi war criminals. Lanny or the Caretakers could have done it. David or the guy she'd come down from Indianapolis with could have done it, and that would explain the missing crucifix. Maybe she'd given one of her customers the clap and he'd come back for revenge. If I thought about it some more I could probably come up with a reason for the Ol' Man to have killed her.
But I still thought we had it right before: Siri had her killed because she was a junkie and
was getting into his dope.
And as for Reba, the Ol' Man was surely the one who killed her. Hell, Nick would never do that. The Ol' Man had the perfect motive and the perfect opportunity, all alone in the house with her.
I could believe any one of those guys killing those girls. But I couldn't believe that Nick did it.
After breakfast I wandered down to Woody's to get a bottle of pop. Uncle Bill was taking me to the airport that evening for my 6:15 flight home and I had all day to kill. The weather was getting wintery; it was overcast and windy, and I was glad I had my heavy corduroy coat. Calhoun was pretty deserted; the kids were in school and it was too cold for anybody to be hanging around on their porches or messing around in their yards. There was nobody in Woody's except Woody, and we talked a little while I drank my pop and he stacked canned stuff.
I had been wondering what had happened to Nick's car and I decided to take a walk by his Aunt's house and see if it was still there. I wondered if Velma had sold it. She didn't have a driver's license; she wouldn't have any use for it. Ha! I could see her tooling around Dino's in it. She lived just a couple of blocks from Woody's, and I strolled over when I finished my drink.
There was the red Chevy, parked in the driveway, just like always. I imagined Nick walking out of the house and running a rag over the chrome, then starting it up and revving it couple of times, listening to the engine,
But it was dirty and rain-streaked, with dead leaves covering the cowl, and the right front tire was nearly flat. I had never seen that car with even a layer of dust on it. I felt like washing it as I stood on the sidewalk looking sadly at it.
Then Velma came around the side of the garage with a sack of garbage in her hands. She wore a long tweed overcoat and had a beige scarf around her head and fleecy brown mules on her feet. She looked older and grayer. She paused when she saw me, looked quizzically at me with sad eyes, and said hello.
"Oh, you're Fred and Emma's grandson," she said, smiling wanly, when she recognized me.
"Yeah. How are you?" I smiled back cheerfully at her.
"Oh, fine. A little arthritis. How are your Grandparents?"
"Fine."
"What are you doing here this time of year?"
"I had to come down for the trial. Mr. Davis..."
"Oh, yes," she said, nodding her head. "I saw it on the news last night. And of course everybody's talking about it. That poor Davis girl."
"Yeah."
"I always liked her. I thought she and Nick might... Oh, well."
"I just came by to see what happened to Nick's car," I said uncomfortably. She looked mighty sad standing there in the cold clutching the brown paper sack full of egg cartons and coffee grounds and trash. A few strands of hair had escaped from under her scarf and were being whipped across her face by the wind. "I thought you might have sold it."
"Oh, I've had offers aplenty, Lord knows, but I just can't bear to see it go. Nick loved it so. I hate to leave it outside like this, I know it's a sight. But his other car's in the garage, in bits and pieces."
I walked closer to the Chevy and put a hand on the front fender. The metal was cold. Like Nick. I wondered if the car had been started up since he died. "I sure had a lot of good times in this, riding around with Nick," I said.
"Would you like to get in. For old time's sake?" she asked. "I've got the keys right here." She fished them out of her pocket and handed them to me. "It's been locked up since... they brought it."
"Yeah, gee, thanks," I said, taking the keys from her.
I unlocked the driver's door and got in. It smelled musty. I closed the door and rolled the window down. I put one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on the Hurst shifter. Man, it felt great. What a car! I ran my hand over the dash and the upholstery. It was dusty. The radio looked like it was set on WSAI. I pushed in the clutch and changed gears. I would be getting my license soon; I wondered if she would sell it to me? Aah, that's dreaming, man. What would I use for money, Post Toasties box tops?
Velma leaned down and said: "You like this car, too."
"It's the neatest car I ever saw." I meant it, too.
"Have you got your driver's license yet?"
"No, but I'll have it pretty soon."
She shook her head sadly. "You boys and your cars. Sometimes I thought Nick cared more about this car than he did anything or anybody."
On the way to the airport I almost said something to Ricky about my wild suspicions about Nick, but I decided to cool it. Hell, Ricky's imagination would run away with him and he'd have me believing that Nick really did kill Carol and Reba.
I looked for my stewardess friend Kelly on the way home, but she wasn't on this flight, so I settled back with a hot rod novel by Henry Gregor Felson that Ricky had loaned me and just about had it finished when we got to O'Hare.