Saturday Morning
The Celtic Festival
Everyone was smart enough to hold their applause until the skunk was well out of the area.
I bent over, putting my hands on my knees, stretching my torso as long as I could to suck in some well-deserved air. I peeked down, realized my mistake and yanked at the top of the bodice, which had suddenly slipped a bit low for a family-friendly event.
Delight and Kay moved back by my side.
Kay was tapping her watch. “It’s time for the axe throwing contest.”
I pointed toward the tent. “My hatchet is in there, and we are all aware of what happened to me the last time I opened that flap. I’m going to take a hard pass until the wildlife guy tells me the petting zoo has been relocated.”
“Solid decision,” Delight said. “And that means we get to go watch the guys throw heavy things like trees and shit, right? They got their wood to toss around, and I mean to see that. Especially that big one, Polar Bear.”
I looked around, wondering where Connor had gone with Twinkles, probably on a potty break. “Can we stop by the EMT tent on the way?”
“Did the skunk bite you?” Kay unceremoniously reached over and picked up my skirt to scan my legs.
I pushed my skirt back down. “I was hoping they could hook me up with a coffee I.V.” The three of us started off. “I thought they might be able to run some tubing from a bag of high-test into my system. I hadn’t planned well enough for today. I didn’t drink any coffee before I got dressed.”
“You could just drink it from a cup,” Kay offered.
“I can’t swallow. I’m being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.”
“But her boobies look excellent,” Delight said. “It’s the price a girl’s got to pay to be magnificent like that.”
“True story,” Kay said.
I thought of my comfy yoga pants and hoody, then I looked over at Delight who was smoothing down the front of her costume, nodding and smiling. Delight was too delighted with her work. And I wasn’t going to rain on her parade.
And here I was so looking forward to having bangers for lunch. I frowned in the direction of the hot meaty smells drifting my way.
I hadn’t taken two steps when I saw a guy in a black suit, black dress shirt, and a red tie headed my way. He had salt and pepper hair slicked back, and for a minute, I thought it was Sal.
While I had stopped, Kay and Delight had kept moving through the crowd toward the competition field.
I focused back on the guy, realizing that while the clothes and hair were the same, most everything else was different.
“Roberta Jacqueline Reid?” he asked as he arrived in front of me.
I stalled. Should I lie?
He looked up at the Hooch sign then looked from me, to my wench’s costume, then back up to my eyes. “You’re Miss Reid?”
“That’s her,” the guy next to him said. Now him, I recognized. He was the Alcohol Beverage Control guy who was friends with Nicky Stromboli. Joseph Russo. This was the guy who had been tormenting me with bogus citations since I took over the bar. And he had tormented Hooch before that. If he wanted to see my license, he was gonna have to wait until they’d cleared out all the drunken critters.
“Guido Stromboli,” the black suited man said, placing a hand over his heart.
From where I stood, I could see Meadow startle, frown, and slip into the shadow of her tent, disappearing from view. She was afraid of this guy. I remembered what Sal had said about Guido, they all had different roles to play, and Guido was the butcher. I did a quick scan looking for a friendly face, but I didn’t see anyone I knew. The teams had all headed over to line up when the competitors were called to the field.
“You’re running Nicky’s while he’s recovering from his stroke.” I held out my hand for a shake – after all, this guy hadn’t done anything to me. Yet. I was playing it cool. I had this.
Instead of shaking my hand, Guido reached up to grab the ABC guy by the scruff of his suit collar and thrust him forward.
At the same time, I reached into my pocket and pushed the button on Dick’s digital recorder.
“This is Joseph Russo,” Guido said. “He’s my cousin.” And Guido was Nicky’s cousin, so that meant the harassment had been a family affair.
Russo had a manila envelope in his hands.
I’d seen more than my fair share of Joseph Russo’s manila envelopes. They always held bogus citations against the bar, and it always meant I had to get some stupid moonlighting gig to pay the lawyers.
I reflexively moved my hands behind my back. The bar wasn’t operating. I was in a public space. Could I just refuse to accept the citation? “Can’t we give it a rest until Nicky is back at the restaurant?” If I actually deserved any citation, I’d understand that this was my fault, and I should pay a price. This wasn’t my fault. I was compliant with the laws. No, this was Nicky Stromboli wanting to drive Hooch’s out of business. And I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
Granted my “fight” was actually me getting second and even third jobs to pay for Kay’s bosses, over at the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, to represent my interests in court.
I suddenly felt exhausted.
I was too tired to deal with this.
Just today, I’d already done cyborg alarm clocks, rib crushing zippers, and a drunken skunk, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.
And now this.
I guess that after I saved Nicky’s life, I thought things might quiet down a bit.
But no.
Here was the ABC guy with an outstretched hand and a manila envelope.
This would be a great time to sigh. Too bad I didn’t have any air in my body, so I was limited to a grimace.
Guido gave the ABC guy a little shake, and Russo stretched the envelope a little closer to me.
Guido said, “I told him to give you this envelop last night. He said he missed you at the bar, and you drove to the police station. So he figured you had an appointment. Isn’t that what you said, Joey?”
Russo stretched the envelop out a little farther and looked at me, pleading with me to take it from his hands.
I wasn’t obliged to take anything from the guy. I wasn’t going to make this any easier for him. If he wanted to serve me with a citation, he was going to have to work for it.
“Look at that, Joey.” Guido held out his open palm toward me. “Look. Do you see that look on her face? That’s derision. Scorn. You deserve that.” Guido shook a fatherly finger at Joseph Russo who was dangling uncomfortably from where his shirt collar was held high in Guido’s fist.
Russo was probably fifty-some years old, balding, a little paunchy. It wasn’t like he was some young kid who was getting a lecture.
Russo looked like a supplicant. Like he didn’t want to do anything that would get him on the butcher’s bad side.
Guido turned back to me. “I hear that Nicky and Joey haven’t been acting nice. I hear they’re giving you a hassle. I don’t like that.” He did that same weird suit coat-shifting thing that Sal did. It made me think that they were trying to adjust a shoulder holster. I wondered if Guido was packing. He looked like he was packing − and not in the good way. “I always say, if you’ve got a problem with someone, you handle it quietly. Privately. You talk respectfully. You let them know what you want and give them a chance to work something out.”
I crossed my arms under my boobs. “What do you want?” I was so proud that my voice didn’t crack.
“Me?” Guido asked. “I want to make nice. You saved my cousin’s life. Georgie says you let him hold the leash when you take your dog for a walk. Georgie says he likes to bring you flowers to make you smile.”
Georgie was Nicky’s son. He was about my age in terms of candles on a birthday cake, but he had the intellectual development of an eight-year-old child. Very sweet. Very loving. I didn’t like that Guido was talking about him.
“Take the envelope,” Guido said, lifting h
is chin.
I looked down at the envelope that Russo was still holding out to me. I pursed my lips.
“Take the envelope,” he said in a quiet, gravelly voice, nodding his head.
I reached out and took the envelope.
Guido let go of Russo’s collar. “Tell her,” he said.
Mr. Joseph Russo, ABC official, looked down at his shoes, pouting. “I’m sorry.”
I rolled my eyes around. “What? What was that?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Holy moly, what was going on here?
12
Saturday Morning
The Celtic Festival
As soon as Guido let go of Russo’s collar, Russo shook himself out and took off toward the festival exit.
Guido gave a curt angular dip that had a bow-like quality and walked off toward the food tents. And I, I just stood there baffled with the stupid manila envelope in my hand.
I turned when I saw Meadow out of the corner of my eye. She was peeking around the corner of her tent, making sure the coast was clear.
I turned. “Do you know them, Meadow?”
“Unfortunately,” she said, coming out into the light of day.
“Guido Stromboli or Joseph Russo?” I asked. It seemed improbable to me that she would know either.
“I know the family,” she said then pursed her lips.
It still didn’t make sense to me. Meadow lived out in the countryside in a cave. How would she brush up against the family? “I was told that Guido is the butcher.”
She stared at me for a moment. “Who told you that?”
“Well, Sal did.”
I watched as a shiver raced down Meadow’s body.
“Did Sal talk to you about insurance, too?” I whispered. Wide-eyed, breathless − well, the breathless part was the dress, but still. This was weird, and I didn’t like it. At all.
Her gaze travelled around the crowd. I turned and did the same. Polar Bear was headed our way, other than that, it looked like the normal Celtic Festival goers. No other men in funeral wear were lurking about the shadows of the tents. “Sal talked to you about insurance?” I prompted, hoping that the tape recorder in my pocket was doing a good job of not just picking up the words but the emotion in Meadow’s voice. I was pretty sure that she was scared and trying to hide it.
“I have insurance from Sal − it’s not like I was given a lot of choice,” she said. “Sometimes you have to do as your told because you have no recourse.”
“Did Sal threaten you?”
“Let’s just say I was given an ultimatum, and I complied. It’s all good. The insurance is in place. And it’s not so much that I can’t handle it. My living expenses are minimal.”
“What kind of insurance?”
“Property. Health. Life. So far, so good. I haven’t had any issues since I signed. Safe and sound.” She reached over and rapped her knuckles on one of the bowls. “Knock on wood.”
“Meadow, if you need help…”
She adjusted the twigs in her hair. “No. When you decide to join the family, you know what the score is.”
“You’re part of their family as in you’re related?”
“No,” she said, then turned to smile at a couple who had come in to admire her bowls.
I didn’t like that. I didn’t like any of that. Dick had said that if there was organized crime coming in that it could hurt the whole city. I reached in my pocket and turned off the recorder, then walked to my car to put the envelope away. I wondered how “the family” had found Meadow in her cave, and why they would think she had money to pay them for their “insurance.” Then I thought, if they could find Meadow in her cave, were any of us safe?
I looked at the envelope I was clutching in my hands. I wondered if it were some kind of ultimatum, and the butcher was acting nice, making Russo deliver it as some kind of penance.
Yeah, that dynamic, I didn’t get.
I decided I wouldn’t open it or look at the contents until Monday, when I could open it at my lawyers’ office, talk it over with Mr. Cheatham, and possibly call in the police. If it was just another citation, well, they typically gave me a few weeks before a court appearance. If it was something else…
I was moving at the rate of molasses on a cold winter’s day, as I made my way back to the parking lot and my Mini Cooper.
I understood, now, the need for fainting couches and smelling salts in days of yore. I was feeling a little dizzy. I wondered where Connor had gone off to with Twinkles, if I went down, Twinkles would keep people from stepping on me.
As I walked back to the festival space from the parking lot, I saw both Connor and Twinkles lined up with the Fitzgerald Clan ready for the opening ceremonies. Twinkles was wearing a tartan scarf around his neck and looking very proud of himself.
And there were Delight and Kay. Kay waved over to me.
When I finally got closer to them, she called out, “Where have you been? You almost missed the Parade of the Clans.”
“I had to take something to my car,” I said not wanting to go into my mob interaction.
“You’re walking like an old lady.”
“It’s the oxygen situation,” I said. I bent my knees until I plopped down kneeling, then went to twist and sit on their blanket but failed miserably. I ended up just flopping over and rolling onto my back.
It was nice lying there, looking up at the blue sky. Lying down meant gravity was pulling my organs toward the Earth and thereby giving me an extra centimeter of lung space. I was taking advantage of that.
“Sit up,” Kay hissed.
The bagpipes wheezed, then started their melodies. The drums sounded their rat-a-tat-tat.
“Sit up.” Kay swatted at my leg.
I tried. I failed. I flopped.
“Bobbi Jax, you can’t lie there on the side of the road as the clans walk by. The men are all wearing kilts.”
“Oh,” Delight said. “I’d forgotten about that. Here, scrooch yourself over a bit and give me space to lie down, too.” Delight scuttled around. “Do you think they’re all doing that commando thing like Connor said last night? This is gonna be a treat, this is.”
My knees were bent, and I was swinging my arms to roll − a little left, a little right, trying to gather some momentum to get back on my stomach, so I could maybe do a yoga move to get myself upright again. Kay watched me flail, realized the issue, and stood up. With her foot planted on top of my foot, she reached for my hands and pulled.
But not before Clan McGregor had paraded by.
I pointed toward left field. There was Dick. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt, an ochre colored kilt, and a pair of black combat boots. He had the sledge hammer in his hands. The announcer was describing the sport. Dick was about to swing the twenty-two-pound hammer around his head and let it fly down the field. Each man had three tries, and the two best scores went to the semi-finals.
Dick looked down the field eyeing the spot he was to fling the weight. He bent and wrapped his hands around the shaft.
“Mmm, mmm, mmm, Hammer time!” Delight said. “Masterful. Look at that practiced grip.”
As he stood up, he started the first rotation, letting the weight of the head at the top of the shaft swing around once, twice…his kilt swirled wide, exposing the tight black compression pants the men used to help them stabilize their knees. He let the hammer fly.
I crossed my fingers hard to give it a boost of good juju.
It hit and bounced. The crowd roared their congratulations. Dick turned to look at me, and I lifted my hand to wave, so he knew I had seen.
It was a darned good throw.
The guy with the measuring tape called out his length, and the crowd whistled and clapped.
The next guy stepped up.
Delight turned to me. “Why are they throwing a hammer around? Does that make any sense?”
“To see how far it can go.” Kay was sitting on a feis bucket. It was basically a bucket from the hardware st
ore with a cushion attached to the plastic lid. The dancers would put their soft shoe “ghillies” and their hard shoes in the bucket, along with sock glue, glitter spray, pins, and her competition number to lug around with them and give them somewhere to sit that wouldn’t mess up their dresses. The dancers were judged not only on their precision of movements but also their appearance. In the stiff triangular skirt, Kay couldn’t sit on the ground or even on a regular chair. Perching on her bucket meant her skirt could hang down and stay perfect.
“When is your first dance?” I asked.
She looked at her watch. “Another fifteen minutes. We’re doing the traditional sets first. I’m going to do St. Patrick’s Day.”
“I like that one the best,” I said.
“I went and watched her practicing that last night,” Delight said. “That’s some strange kind of dancing that there is. Her feet were stomping and a wiggling and flying a mile a minute, and her arms are straight down like a soldier, no movement at all up above her hips. Why is it, do you think they dance like that?”
“Probably, when they started dancing, all the women were in dresses like the one you made for me. If I were to dance right now − and I can’t imagine even trying − all I could do was move my feet. I’ve got no room to move my torso.”
“Good point,” she said. “I can see what you’re sayin’ about the dancing and the dress. But that still don’t explain why those men are out in the field flinging that hammer around.”
I didn’t answer. I was focused on Polar Bear.
Polar Bear had the hammer in his hands now. He had the advantage of height. Dick was tall but not Polar Bear tall, and when Polar Bear released the hammer, the sheer physics of releasing the weight from longer arms and a higher height meant there was more air time. It was the mathematics of the sport.
Still Dick had been impressive.
Polar Bear started his rotations.
“It’s a full body work out,” I said, pointing over, “and it gave Dick a great six pack of abs.”
“Now how would you know that about Dick’s abs?”
If You See Kay Jig Page 8
