“Grandma told me.”
He looked up, surprised. “She told you? Aw jeez. Christ. I'm telling you, women are such blabbermouths.”
I poured out two cups of coffee and handed one to DeChooch. “Have you seen a doctor about it?”
“I'm not talking to a doctor. Before you know it they're poking around and telling you to get one of them implants. I'm not getting a goddamn penile implant.” He shook his head. “I can't believe I'm talking to you about this. Why am I talking to you?”
I smiled at him. “I'm easy to talk to.” And also, he had hundred-proof breath. DeChooch was doing a lot of drinking. “While we're talking, why don't you tell me about Loretta Ricci?”
“Cripes, she was a hot one. She came to bring me one of them Meals-on-Wheels and she was all over me. I kept telling her I wasn't any good for that anymore, but she wouldn't listen. She said she could get anyone to . . . you know, do it. So I figured, what the hell, what have I got to lose, right? Next thing I know she's down there and she's having some luck with it. And then just when I'm thinking it's going to happen she keels over and dies. I guess she gave herself a heart attack from working so hard. I tried to revive her, but she was goddamn dead. I was so pissed off I shot her.”
“You could use some anger-management skills,” I said.
“Yeah, people tell me that.”
“There wasn't any blood anywhere. No bullet holes.”
“What do I look like, an amateur?” His face crinkled and a tear slid down his cheek. “I'm real depressed,” he said.
“I bet I know something that'll cheer you up.”
He looked like he didn't believe it.
“You know Louie D's heart?”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn't his heart.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Swear to God.”
“Whose heart was it?”
“It was a pig heart. I bought it at a butcher shop.”
DeChooch smiled. “They put a pig heart back into Louie D and buried him?”
I nodded my head yes.
He started to chuckle. “Then where's Louie D's real heart?”
“A dog ate it.”
DeChooch burst out laughing. He laughed until he had a coughing fit. When he got himself under control and he stopped coughing and laughing, he looked down at himself. “Jeezus, I've got an erection.”
Men get erections at the strangest times.
“Look at it,” he said. “Look at it! It's a beauty. It's hard as a rock.”
I looked over at it. It was a pretty decent erection.
“Who would have thought,” I said. “Go figure.”
DeChooch was beaming. “Guess I'm not so old after all.”
He's going to jail. He can't see. He can't hear. He can't take a leak that lasts under fifteen minutes. But he has an erection and all the other problems are small change. Next time around I'm coming back as a man. Priorities are so clearly defined. Life is so simple.
DeChooch's refrigerator caught my eye. “Did you by any chance take a pot roast out of Dougie's freezer?”
“Yeah. At first I thought it was the heart. It was all wrapped up in plastic wrap and it was dark in the kitchen. But then I realized it was too big, and when I took a closer look I saw it was a pot roast. I figured they'd never miss it, and it might be nice to have a pot roast. Only I never got to cook it.”
“I hate to bring this up,” I said to DeChooch, “but you should let me bring you in.”
“I can't do that,” DeChooch said. “Think about it. How's it going to look . . . Eddie DeChooch brought in by a girl.”
“It happens all the time.”
“Not in my profession. I'd never live it down. I'd be disgraced. I'm a man. I need to be brought in by somebody tough, like Ranger.”
“No. Not Ranger. He's not available. He's not feeling good.”
“Well, that's what I want. I want Ranger. I'm not going if it's not Ranger.”
“I liked you better before you had an erection.”
DeChooch smiled. “Yeah, I'm back in the saddle, chickie.”
“How about if you turn yourself in?”
“Guys like me don't turn themselves in. Maybe the young guys do. But my generation has rules. We have a code.” His gun had been lying on the table in front of him. He picked the gun up and chambered a round. “Do you want to be responsible for my suicide?”
Oh brother.
There was a table lamp lit in the living room, and the overhead light had been switched on in the kitchen. The rest of the house was dark. DeChooch sat with his back to a doorway leading to the dark dining room. Like a ghost from horrors past, with only a slight rustle of clothing, Sophia appeared in the doorway. She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly, and I thought she might truly be an apparition, a figment of my overactive imagination. She held a gun at waist level. She stared straight at me, aimed, and before I could react, she fired. POW!
DeChooch's gun flew from his hand, blood spurted from the side of his head, and he slumped to the floor.
Someone screamed. I think it was me.
Sophia laughed softly, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints. “Surprised the two of you, didn't I? I've been watching through the window. You and Chooch, sitting here having cookies.”
I didn't say anything. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I'd stutter and dribble or maybe just make unintelligible guttural sounds.
“They put Louie into the ground today,” Sophia said. “I couldn't be at graveside because of you. You ruined everything. You and Chooch. He's the one who started it all, and he's going to pay. I couldn't take care of him until I got the heart back, but now it's his time. An eye for an eye.” More soft laughter. “And you're going to be the one to help me. You do a good enough job, maybe I'll let you go. Would you like that?”
I think I might have nodded, but I'm not sure. She would never let me go. We both knew that.
“An eye for an eye,” Sophia said. “It's the word of God.”
My stomach sickened.
She smiled. “I can see on your face that you know what must be done. It's the only way, isn't it. If we don't do this we'll be forever damned, forever shamed.”
“You need a doctor,” I whispered. “You've been under a lot of stress. You're not thinking right.”
“What do you know about thinking right? Do you talk to God? Are you guided by His words?”
I stared at her, feeling my pulse pounding in my throat and at my temple.
“I talk to God,” she said. “I do what He tells me to do. I am His instrument.”
“Well yeah, but God's a good guy,” I said. “He wouldn't want you to do bad things.”
“I do what's right,” Sophia said. “I cut evil out at its source. My soul is that of an avenging angel.”
"How do you know this?'
“God told me.”
A terrible new thought popped into my head. “Did Louie know you talked to God? That you're God's instrument?”
Sophia froze.
“That room in the cellar . . . the cement room where you kept Mooner and Dougie. Did Louie ever lock you in that room?”
The gun was shaking in her hand, and her eyes glittered under the light. “It's always difficult for the faithful. The martyrs. The saints. You're trying to distract me, but it won't work. I know what I must do. And you're going to help me now. I want you to get down on your knees and unbutton his shirt.”
“No way!”
“You will. You'll do it now, or I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you in first one foot and then the other. And then I'll shoot you in the knee. And I'll continue to shoot you until you either do as I tell you or you die.”
She took aim and I knew she was telling the truth. She'd shoot me without a moment's regret. And she'd continue to shoot me until I was dead. I stood, using the table for support. I walked wooden-legged to DeChooch and knelt beside him.
“Do it,” she said. “Unbutton his shirt.”
I put my h
“Even better,” Sophia said.
I gave an involuntary shudder and began unbuttoning his shirt. One button at a time. Slowly. Buying time. My fingers feeling stupid and clumsy. Barely able to manage the task.
When I had the shirt unbuttoned, Sophia reached behind her and got a butcher knife from the wooden block on the kitchen counter. She tossed the knife on the floor beside DeChooch. “Cut his undershirt away.”
I took the knife in hand, feeling the weight of it. If this was television, in one swift move I'd have the knife plunged into Sophia. But this was real life, and I had no idea how to throw a knife or how to move fast enough to beat the bullet.
I put the knife to the white undershirt. My mind was scrambling. My hands were shaking and sweat prickled at my underarms and scalp. I made the initial stab and then ran the knife the length of the shirt, exposing DeChooch's knobby chest. My own chest feeling hot as fire and painfully constricted.
“Now cut his heart out,” Sophia said, her voice quiet and steady.
I looked up at her and her face was serene . . . except for the terrifying eyes. She was confident that she was doing the right thing. Probably had voices in her head reassuring her even as I knelt over DeChooch.
Something dripped onto DeChooch's chest. Either I was drooling or else my nose was running. I was too scared to tell which it was. “I don't know how to do this,” I said. “ I don't know how to get at the heart.”
“You'll find a way.”
“I can't.”
“You will!”
I shook my head.
“Would you like to pray before you die?” she asked.
“The room in the cellar . . . did he put you in it often? Did you pray there?”
The serenity left her. “He said I was crazy, but he was the one who was crazy. He didn't have faith. God didn't speak to him.”
“He shouldn't have locked you in the room,” I said, feeling a rush of anger at the man who put his schizophrenic wife in a cement cell rather than get her medical attention.
“It's time,” Sophia said, leveling the gun at me.
I glanced down at DeChooch, wondering if I could kill him to save myself. How strong was my sense of survival? I glanced over at the cellar door. “I have an idea,” I said. “DeChooch has some power tools in the cellar. I might be able to get through his ribs if I had a power saw.”
“That's ridiculous.”
I jumped up. “No. It's exactly what I need. I saw this on television. On one of those doctor shows. I'll be right back.”
“Stop!”
I was at the cellar door. “This will only take a minute.” I opened the door, turned the light on, and moved onto the first step.
She was several paces behind me with the gun. “Not so fast,” she said. “I'm going down with you.”
We took the steps together, going slowly, not wanting to misstep. I crossed the cellar and grabbed a portable power saw that was sitting on DeChooch's tool bench. Women want babies. Men want power tools.
“Back upstairs,” she said, agitated at being in the cellar, looking anxious to leave.
I took the stairs slowly again, dragging my feet, knowing she was antsy behind me. I could feel the gun at my back. She was too close. Taking chances because she wanted to get out of the cellar. I got to the top stair and I whirled around, catching her at midchest with the power saw.
She gave a small exclamation, and there was a gunshot that went wild, and then she was tumbling down the stairs. I didn't wait to see the outcome. I jumped through the door, slammed it and locked it, and ran out of the house. I ran through the front door I'd carelessly left unlocked when I'd followed DeChooch into the kitchen.
I pounded on Angela Marguchi's door, yelling for her to open it. The door opened and I almost knocked Angela over in my rush to get in. “Lock the door,” I said. “Lock all the doors and get me your mother's shotgun.” Then I ran to the phone and called 911.
The police arrived before I got enough control over myself to go back into the house. No point going in if my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't hold the shotgun.
Two uniforms entered DeChooch's half of the house and minutes later gave the all-clear for the paramedics to enter. Sophia was still in the cellar. She'd broken her hip and probably had some cracked ribs. I thought the cracked ribs were chillingly ironic.
I followed the EMS crew and stopped in my tracks when I got to the kitchen. DeChooch wasn't on the floor.
Billy Kwiatkowski had been the first uniform in. “Where's DeChooch?” I asked him. “I left him on the floor by the table.”
“The kitchen was empty when I entered,” he said.
We both looked at the trail of blood leading to the back door. Kwiatkowski switched his flashlight on and walked into the yard. He returned moments later.
“Hard to follow the trail through the grass in the dark, but there's some blood in the alley behind the garage. It looks to me like he had a car back there and drove off.”
Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable. The man was like a roach . . . turn the light on and he disappears.
I gave my statement and slipped away. I was worried about Grandma. I wanted to make sure she was safe at home. And I wanted to sit in my mother's kitchen. And most of all, I wanted a cupcake.
LIGHTS WERE BLAZING when I pulled up to my parents' house. Everyone was in the front room watching the news. And if I knew my family, everyone was waiting up for Valerie.
Grandma jumped off the couch when I walked in. “Did you get him? Did you get DeChooch?”
I shook my head. “He got away.” I didn't feel like going into a big explanation.
“He's a pip,” Grandma said, sinking back into the couch.
I went into the kitchen to get a cupcake. I heard the front door open and close and Valerie drooped into the kitchen and slumped into a chair at the table. She had her hair slicked back behind her ears and sort of plumped up on top. Blond lesbian impersonator does Elvis.
I put the plate of cupcakes in front of her and took a seat. “Well? How was your date?”
“It was a disaster. She's not my type.”
“What's your type?”
“Not women, apparently.” She peeled the paper wrapper off a chocolate cupcake. “Janeane kissed me and nothing happened. Then she kissed me again and she was sort of . . . passionate.”
“How passionate?”
Valerie turned scarlet. “She Frenched me!”
“And?”
“Weird. It was really weird.”
“So you're not a lesbian?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Hey, you gave it a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I said.
“I thought it could be an acquired taste. Like, you know how when we were kids and I hated asparagus? And now I love asparagus.”
“Maybe you need to stick with it longer. Took you twenty years to get to like asparagus.”
Valerie thought about that while she ate her cupcake.
Grandma came in. “What's going on here? Am I missing something?”
“We're eating cupcakes,” I said.
Grandma took a cupcake and sat down. “Have you been on Stephanie's motorcycle yet?” she asked Valerie. “I rode on it tonight and it made my privates tingle.”
Valerie almost choked on her cupcake.
“Maybe you want to give up on being a lesbian and get a Harley,” I said to Valerie.
My mother came into the kitchen. She looked at the cupcake plate and sighed. “They were supposed to be for the girls.”
“We're girls,” Grandma said.
My mother sat down and took a cupcake. She chose the vanilla with the colorful spinkles. We all stared in shock at this. My mother almost never ate a perfect cupcake with sprinkles. My mother ate leftover halves and cupcakes with ruined icing. She ate the broken cookies and pancakes that got burned on one side.
“Wow,” I said to her, “you're eating a whole cupcake.”
“I deserve it,” my mother said.
“I bet you've been watching Oprah again,” Grandma said to my mother. “I always know when you've been watching Oprah.”
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