If Bobbyjay hadn’t known she was lying like a Catholic girl, he would have choked at the quaver in her voice.
The purple faded out of Marty Dit’s face. He eyed them shrewdly.
Oh shit. This was one joke that wouldn’t last long. Bobbyjay looked down at her, trying to read her thoughts, and forgot himself in her big brown eyes, full of babyish guile and pleading and sorrow.
“Promise me you won’t fight with Goomba, Bobbyjay,” she begged softly.
Bobbyjay felt his body swell up. “Okay.” He sent a guilty look at Marty Dit.
The old man was white.
Daisy twisted against Bobbyjay and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his neck.
“What are you doing?” Bobbyjay whispered to her hair.
“Saving your life, you big lug,” she murmured back.
“You didn’t,” Marty Dit said, sounding shaken. He snatched up his fallen .38, pulled his cell phone off his belt, pushed a button, and held the phone to his ear, all without taking his eyes off Bobbyjay. Of course nothing happened. Dead zone. Marty Dit glared. “Wait here, you two.” He walked away, bent over the phone, scowling back over his shoulder every two steps.
“Is he gone?” Daisy whispered into Bobbyjay’s neck.
“Uh, wait a sec—he’s going behind those trees—he’s gone.” Bobbyjay realized again that he had Marty Dit’s actual granddaughter in his arms. He let go, fast.
Daisy looked pale. “Okay, here’s what we do. We lie like crazy until he calms down—”
“He’s never gonna calm down!” Bobbyjay moaned, remembering past horror stories. “He’ll kill me. He’ll wait ’til you’re gone or he’ll ambush me behind a truck on a load-in somewhere and bang!” Or drop a counterweight on my head from the rail. Or roll a box into me from behind and break my legs. Or blow up my Jeep. Bobbyjay flinched as each thought splashed across the technicolor wide screen of his imagination.
“No! No.” Daisy sounded surer with every word, which made him even twitchier. “Not if we’re engaged. He can’t kill you. He knows I would never, ever forgive him.”
This was probably true. Marty Ditorelli was a slave to his granddaughter.
And why not? She’d been a beauty since babyhood. Her creamy Italian skin and sad brown eyes had been off limits to every stagehand’s son ever since high school. Plus, she’d filled out a lot.
“Daisy,” he said and swallowed a lump. “He’ll know you’re not in love with me.”
She wafted industrial-grade eyelashes. “I’m a good liar.”
“Well, I’m not.” She just kept watching him. “What?” he said testily.
“We can’t ever let him think it was you, Bobbyjay.”
“I keep telling you, it wasn’t me!”
“Or any of the Mortons.” She watched him steadily and he felt himself go red. “If we do, it’ll all start up again. It’ll be awful. You may not know everything that happened, but I do.”
Bobbyjay doubted that. “It would be bad.” The fistfights, the kneecappings-with-baseball-bats, cars up in flames and only a miracle that none of them was occupied. If Marty Dit disbelieved Daisy’s lie and shot him, it wouldn’t stop there.
She clutched him with both hands. “My mom can’t hold him back over the Targa. But she’ll put her foot down if we’re engaged.”
“That’s how it stopped last time. Our moms.”
Daisy stuck her chin out. “And me. All us womenfolk.”
They’d made the Local safe for Mortons and Ditorellis alike, all the women who had married into their families, so that Bobbyjay and Daisy and Mikey Ray Ditorelli and all their cousins could grow up together without fear.
But women don’t stay married to stagehands forever.
“Your mom’s the only one left,” he said. A chill ran up his back as he thought of the other half of the problem. “Who’s gonna stop my Pop from declaring war over us being engaged?”
“You are.”
Marty Dit’s sinister voice said, “So you’re still here.” He seemed to have calmed down, but Bobbyjay didn’t like the thoughtful look in his eye.
Marty Dit announced, “I talked to Mikey Ray. He says you walked off the job.”
Bobbyjay couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“You’re here, you’re all wet, and you stink like fish. Now, I figure a stunt like this would take an hour or two. And a lot of guys. You only been gone from the Opera House what, half an hour, and I been here half of that. So,” old man Ditorelli said, his voice rising dangerously, “I figure you’re covering for those scumbags again.”
Bobbyjay took a deep breath. He shook Daisy off. “No, sir, I’m not.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, sir. I found Daisy alone by the car, crying her eyes out.”
“So who called you off the job to come here?”
Bobbyjay’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“I called him,” Daisy said. “He’s my fiancé.”
“You called this douchebag for help?”
“I called you, too, Goomba.” She laid her hand on his arm. “It’s all my fault, Goomba. I left the moon roof open. I’m sorry. I’m really, really—” Her voice broke again. Bobbyjay’s heart melted. The kid wasn’t faking. “—really sorry.”
Old man Ditorelli melted, too. “My poor lamb.” He pulled her close and patted her, eyeing Bobbyjay craftily. “You’re really engaged?”
Bobbyjay licked his lips and put his hands in his wet back pockets.
Daisy sniffled. “Yes.”
“Well. So,” Marty Dit said slowly. His tone turned smooth. “We can’t have you losing your job because you came to the aid of a damsel in distress, can we? I ain’t on the Executive Board like your grandfather, but I have a few friends. Why don’t you two lovebirds just run along home with the Porsche. I’ll do what I can to keep Bobbyjay out of trouble.”
Bobbyjay said, “Uh, I can call for a tow. And I’ll drive Daisy home in the Jeep.”
“No, no, no,” Marty Dit said with the irony that got him so disliked around the Local. “This is a happy day! God is sending me a grandson-in-law! And a miracle of fishes! I’m keeping ’em. Damn, these fish are fresh! Some of ’em are still swimming! Don’t let any more get away. You two take ’em home and wash ’em and freeze ’em, and in a week or so I’ll throw a big engagement party. Daisy can beerbatter ’em. We’ll invite the Mortons over for a fishfry to celebrate the union of our two families.” He spread his arms and beamed. “The end of an era! Peace on earth, good will toward man!”
Daisy looked at Bobbyjay.
He shrugged. What could they do? At least Marty Dit wasn’t swearing a blood feud.
“We’ll fix it up again, sir,” Bobbyjay said.
“I know you will. So hop in! Take my fish home.”
“What about my Jeep?” Bobbyjay croaked.
“Why, I’ll have Mikey Ray move it for you,” Marty Dit said. “After he’s done running the show, of course.”
Daisy scowled. “Don’t you dare do anything to his car!”
Marty Ditorelli smiled evilly. “I’ll treat it like it was my own.”
Chapter Four
Daisy would have loved to talk to Bobbyjay alone, but Goomba wouldn’t go away. He stood there, arms folded, with his phone in one hand and his gun in the other, and watched while Bobbyjay got up on top of the Targa again and leaned through the moon roof to roll open the driver’s side window. Bobbyjay’s belt buckle squeaked on the roof and he looked at Goomba.
“Uh, I’ll have that scratch fixed, sir.”
“That’s right,” Goomba said, nodding. To Daisy, his calm was scary.
Bobbyjay slid to the ground. “Uh, if we can’t open doors, how can we drive it to your place?”
“Just climb in the windows. Agile kids like you can do that. I’m sure you’ll be a gentleman and help Daisy in.”
Daisy looked at the car, appalled. With the windows open, it was very clear that the whole car was full of water
. And skillions of little silver smelt. They leaped up and squirmed and flipped drops of water against the inside of windshield.
“You’re not going to leave young Mister Morton to handle this all by himself, are you? He is your fiancé.”
“Maybe it won’t run,” she said hopefully.
“Maybe not. Don’t know if you don’t try.”
She looked at Bobbyjay, who widened his eyes at her, like, What can we do?
“C’mon,” he said huskily. “I’ll give you a leg up.”
Glaring at him, she let him hoist her up onto the passenger door of the car. Gingerly she put one sandal-toe into the water. “Eeek! It’s freezing, Goomba!”
Goomba just beamed at her.
She gritted her teeth. Sitting down was horrible. Water and fish spilled over the bottom of the windows. The water around her body was icy and black and she couldn’t see her own lap past the bazillion fish swarming around on the surface and they moved against her. She shivered and shivered.
“Don’t sit on my fish,” Goomba said. “We have a lot of Mortons to feed.”
She lifted up a bit, brushing under herself with one hand, feeling slippery slimy fish slither over her fingers and between her thighs. “Ugh!”
Goomba just chuckled. “It’ll warm up once you’re in it a while.”
Bobbyjay handed her the end of her seat belt. Silently she groped at her waist and shoved the tab home with a watery click.
“Well? Aren’t you getting in too?” she snapped.
He rounded the car and clambered in through the driver’s window. More water and fish poured out through the open windows. Goomba tsked over every fallen smelt. Bobbyjay stuck the key into the ignition and turned the switch.
The car started beautifully, darnit.
Marty Dit made a satisfied sound. “German engineering,” he said happily.
Daisy wrapped her cold, wet arms around her shoulders.
Bobbyjay pulled the car slowly around in a circle and aimed for the street. He looked miserable. Maybe this would cure him of having a crush on her.
Her insides shuddered against each other with cold.
Goomba saluted casually. “Welcome to the family, son.” He was having fun torturing them.
Daisy’s eyes filled. She jerked her head away so he wouldn’t see the tears begin to fall.
“I hate him,” Daisy sobbed next to Bobbyjay, once they were out on Lake Shore Drive.
His heart went out to her. “Your grandpop’s had a couple of bad shocks,” Bobbyjay said.
“Why is he doing this to me? He hates me! I can’t stand it!”
Poor kid. Marty Dit’s little princess. She’d probably never known what a sonofabitch he could be. Bobbyjay wouldn’t have to tell her now.
“How can you be so calm!” she yelled, jerking toward him with a slop of smelt.
“I look at it this way,” Bobbyjay said, waving to the car behind him to pass. “If he works off most of his mad on us tonight, maybe he’ll feel like he’s had enough revenge. It’ll still cost a bundle to fix the car. But we’ll get by without bloodshed,” he said, not very hopefully.
“It’s awful. I hate it.”
Bobbyjay could believe her. It had to be worse for her, with that skimpy little dress on. At least he was wearing jeans. Her teeth chattered.
“We’ll be home before you know it,” he said to soothe her.
She threw a handful of water and fish in his right ear.
“Hey! I’m driving!”
“You just take this whole thing in stride, don’t you!” she raged. “You do that all the time. Your crazy family does something crazy and you come right over and climb right into the fish, don’t you?”
“I never said that.” He was feeling a lot less warm and squishy about her. What a shrew! Now all it took was for her to call him stupid. “I happened to be driving through the park—”
“Oh, give it a rest. You’re so dumb, you filled Pop’s car full of fish.”
Bobbyjay forgot his chivalry. “I did not! You’re so dumb, you told him about the car before you had your own ass covered!”
“You’re so dumb, you can’t stop your family from trashing other people’s cars!”
“You’re so dumb, you told him we were engaged!”
That set her off. “You’re so dumb, you went along with it!” she screamed.
“You’re so dumb, you got us blamed,” he said. It might be a lame comeback, but his heart was in it. “You’re so dumb, you let him make us drive in this car full of fish.”
“I made him? You’re so dumb, you promised to fix an unfixable car!”
Bobbyjay set his jaw. The memory of his grandfather’s voice saying, Don’t just stand there, kid. Do somethin’, rang in his ears. At this moment, sitting up to his chest in smelt and icy lakewater, he didn’t feel in the least bit grateful that Bobby Senior depended on him. He didn’t appreciate the opportunity to justify his place in the family. He felt positively hostile to the entire Morton clan. They were making him look stupid in front of the Local, getting him tormented by that evil motherfucker Marty Ditorelli, and, worst of all, they had got him into a situation where Daisy saw him sitting in fish.
He felt dumb, goddammit.
They turned off Lake Shore Drive and into the Near North neighborhood where Marty Dit and his daughter-in-law had their two-flat. Bobbyjay glanced over at Daisy. Her face was blotchy with crying and her hair dripped water down her face. Poor kid.
“Well, at least nobody’s gonna kill each other,” he said.
The anger died out of her eyes. “That’s right.”
“Yup.” Bobbyjay pulled the Porsche to a stop in front of the two-flat. “So I figure we’re doin’ good so far.”
A snort blurted out of her, and then a chuckle. She lifted cupped hands. Silver smelt flashed in the streetlight and spilled, splashing, into the water between them. Bobbyjay laughed.
Her face lit up with glee. “If you laugh at me,” she said, grinning, “I’ll stick one of these in your ear.”
All of a sudden she was cute again. She clambered out of her seat and wriggled through the window in her dripping little dress and Bobbyjay whanged up a sudden boner at the sight of her slippery white thighs sliding out the window. He didn’t wonder that Marty Dit wanted to keep her home. The kid was a walking candy store.
She stuck her head in the window. “C’mon, get out of there. I’ll find us a couple of buckets.”
He actually had fun helping Daisy bale smelt out of the car and rinsing them for freezing while she told him her troubles.
“Right in front of my stupid cousins, he tells me I’m not smart enough to work outside the house. In front of Vince.” She tossed a handful of limp smelt into the bucket Bobbyjay was holding out.
“Vince Ditorelli? Jeez, Daisy, that’s low. Vince is the guy who once dated a Croat for two weeks before he found out she was a he.” He swished the fish around in cold water.
“Not only that, not only am I too stupid, I’m too innocent.”
Bobbyjay could buy that. She looked at him and rolled her slanty doe-eyes in scorn.
“What?” he protested. “What did I say?”
“Not only that,” she said, ignoring the question, “I’m too untrustworthy. Goomba doesn’t want me leaving the house except to go to the grocery.”
“Oh, come on. What kind of trouble can you get into?”
She sent him a dark look. “Lots.”
“You? Maybe they call you Ditsy Daisy—” Bobbyjay broke off at the incredulous glare she shot him. “Other guys. My dumb cousins, maybe. But,” he hurried on, “I mean, you are kind of innocent. You never got in trouble in school. Not like me and King Dave and Mikey Ray and the guys.”
“That’s because I’m not dumb enough to get in trouble,” she said primly. “When I was a senior in high school, I cut classes to hit the karaoke bars in Wrigleyville, right in the middle of the school day. I got away with it for six months.”
“Wow. I never heard
about this.”
“That’s because I’m a good liar.” She took over swishing fish in the bucket so he could fill the freezer bags. “I told Goomba and Mom and my guidance counselor that I had a girlfriend in another school who was crippled and couldn’t get out. I told them I visited her every day to help her study. And they believed me. I had a permanent pass to leave class whenever I wanted. I would never have got caught if it weren’t for big-mouth Badger Kenack spotting me at the Rock Bottom Brewery on karaoke night and blabbing to Goomba,” she said, savagely hurling fishy water onto the lawn.
Bobbyjay’s mouth hung open. “Wow.”
“Go ahead, laugh,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t almost pulled that one off, Goomba would never have believed we’re engaged, and he’d have shot you tonight. Well, he might have clubbed you with the gun.”
“You’re too much, girl.”
“Shut up,” she said, but in a nicer voice. “What I really want is a J.O.B. A real job, that pays real money, so I don’t have to beg Goomba for pocket money or squeeze an allowance out of Mom. For pete’s sake, I’m twenty-one! Girls my age have been through college! They’re getting married and having kids and they all have jobs.” A wheedle came into her voice. “Bobbyjay, it’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Throwing the bucket down, she clasped his arm with both hands and begged. “Everybody else is in the Local. Poor little Wesley, my cousin who’s such a geek, eventually even he’ll get in, once he’s eighteen and can make apprentice. Bobbyjay, there are girls in the Local! Why can’t I be one of them?”
Bobbyjay looked down into those pleading brown eyes and his heart clutched up. “Daisy, I can’t get you a stagehand gig.”
“Sure you can. You’ve got pull. Your grandfather’s on the Executive Board.”
He took a moment to imagine this girl working one of the jobs he worked—say, hoisting boxes or running cable at a rock show. Bending over to run duct tape over the carpet, say, with guys like his uncle Rob the Snob and Scooby Duhrmeister watching. Pleading up at him, with her creamy breasts pushing up out of that sopping wet flimsy dress and her lips pouting, she looked like the first twelve seconds of a porn flick about the girl next door and a gang bang.
Fools Paradise Page 2
