Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?: A Novel

by Stephen Dobyns

  A problem with Bounty, Inc. was that men who came after Vado and Betinho often grew impatient, even greedy. Then the line between legal and illegal wasn’t so much crossed as crushed. Could this happen to Didi? Connor worried that Didi’s ambitions might land them all in jail. But Connor’s life was stagnating; he needed a change. Gradually his worries diminished, and then they stopped, or almost. So he told Didi he’d give it a try.

  Didi’s first task was to raise the cash for the Winnebago and “put the show on the road,” which meant doing fund-raising in San Diego. Here Vaughn’s computer skills were essential. He hacked the websites of San Diego veterinarians, and soon he had a list of older folks who owned beagles, as well as a list of the dogs’ names. Although unlawful, it was for a good cause, Didi said, and sacrifices must be made. As for other legality issues, Didi said that the papers of incorporation were “pending.” He waved a sheet of paper at Connor, declaring it was a mission statement. And the board of directors? Didi made Connor a member; Vaughn was one already. Armed with claims like “We’ll get the legal shit settled in no time,” Didi had his group make calls for Free Beagles from Nicotine Addiction, Inc., meaning beagles used in medical research rather than beagles hanging out on street corners.

  “Is your puppy at risk of becoming a smoker?” Vaughn would melodiously rumble into the phone. “A crooked lab could snatch him right off the street.”

  “Cigarette addiction for your Suzy would be an awful thing,” Eartha might whisper. “You can’t protect the good beagles if you don’t protect the bad.”

  This was Didi’s strategy: scare them, then soothe them. If a man or woman contributed, Didi sent a certificate stating that so-and-so was a member in good standing of Free Beagles from Nicotine Addiction, Inc. “Just your small contribution,” he’d say in a phone call, “has saved another pup.” The donor would receive a form, and then cash (preferred) or a check made out to FBNA, Inc. would be sent to one of several post office boxes.

  As for the voices, they gave Vaughn Monroe and Eartha Kitt the credibility of familiarity. Often a customer would ask, “Don’t I know you from someplace?” Their hesitations and stutterings indicated awe. “I thought you died in 1973.”

  Vaughn might answer, “Only technically.”

  The fund-raising went well until complaints against FBNA, Inc. began to build up and the police department’s Financial Crimes Unit took an interest. But by then the used Winnebago had been purchased and Didi said it was time to “fly away to the highway.” Had fifteen percent of the earnings been sent to the Humane Society? Didi said that it had. “Would I cheat a pooch?”

  But Connor worried. “Give me a better reason I should I go with you.”

  “The cops will see you as an accomplice. But as a first-time offender, you’ll get a suspended sentence or probation, meaning no jail time.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s best to expect the worst.”

  The danger, as Connor saw it, was that Didi’s ego let him confuse the possible with the certain. If he thought a thing was true, it must be true. If he wanted a thing, he must deserve it. Take his hairstyle—silver and parted in the middle with a brushed-back wing on either side. Didn’t they remind Connor of the wings on the helmet of the god Hermes, Didi had asked. “No,” Connor told Didi. “They don’t.”

  “Hermes,” Didi said, “god of travelers, god of wit, god of deception, god of thieves and gamblers, god of poets. He’s the trickster. You see how fitting it is?”

  “I don’t think a judge will buy it,” Connor said.

  But Didi held these beliefs lightly, as he held everything lightly. Why put your cards on the table if you didn’t have to? He saw life as bookended by the tragic and the ridiculous, which weren’t necessarily independent: the tragic occurring on Monday and the ridiculous on Tuesday. If his philosophy had a flag, its symbol would be a banana peel on a sidewalk, and its focus was the man giving amusement to people on the street by stepping on the peel and flying into the air, only to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. The “tradiculous,” Didi called it. “Think of the Supreme Being as the one who drops a flowerpot onto your head from a celestial window.” The universe, he argued, is governed by whimsy.

  Connor said that Didi wasn’t “dependable” or “trustworthy,” but they weren’t the right words. They were only symptoms of a larger issue.

  “You don’t take life seriously.”

  “What’s to take? People pretend to take it seriously because they’re terrified. They say there’s no such thing as a coincidence, or what goes around comes around. That’s like chewing gristle. It’s hard work. The flowerpot falls on your head because the maid bumped it, not because you deserve punishment. Get real.”

  But what’s real? Didi was sure he traveled along a straight line, but we know how it is. The straight line develops a kink. Didi thinks he has the future figured out, but he knows nothing about Fat Bob, Marco Santuzza, and Leon Pappalardo, nothing about Sal Nicoletti and his sexy wife, nothing about Manny Streeter and Benny Vikström. Call them flowerpots waiting to happen.

  As for Connor, despite his doubts, his mind was changed when Didi said they were heading to New England, because right now Connor’s brother Vasco—the previous owner of the black Bruno Magli slip-ons—is in southeastern Connecticut for a few weeks doing some work at a casino, although Vasco hasn’t said what.

  At times Vasco appears to be a general consultant; at other times he’s a security consultant or a slot adviser. The job remains vague. But spending time in New England will give Connor a chance to see him. In fact, this Monday evening Connor is supposed to have dinner with Vasco at Paragon, the most exclusive of the Foxwoods restaurants.

  —

  Detective Benny Vikström’s wife, Maud, at times makes Vikström a casserole for dinner that he especially likes: salmon, sweet potatoes, shredded carrots, egg yolks, and yellow raisins. They have it tonight, and Vikström thinks of it as their “orange dinner” apart from the raisins, which are almost orange. With the dinner comes a nice green salad with orange sweet peppers and butterscotch pudding for dessert, maybe with whipped cream, possibly turned orange with food coloring.

  So it is with a degree of irritation that, as Vikström is tucking his napkin into his shirt collar, there comes a familiar tap, tap-tap, tap, tap, which signifies that his partner, Manny Streeter, is waiting on the porch.

  Vikström understands that Manny could have arrived a half hour earlier or a half hour later and it wouldn’t have mattered, but Manny knows that his partner eats dinner at seven o’clock on the dot, and he has timed his arrival for its nuisance value. It’s a way for Manny to share his existential disappointment.

  “Not again,” says Maud.

  Vikström goes to the door. The weather is turning cold, and Manny wears a charcoal gray overcoat and a blue watch cap to protect his shaved head.

  “I got news for you,” he says.

  Vikström lets Manny enter and waits. Manny hangs up his coat on a peg by the door but keeps on his blue watch cap. As he walks through the living room, he says, “They still haven’t found the head. It’s absolutely vanished. They brought in a dog, but even the dog can’t find it.” Reaching the dining room, he pauses and nods to Vikström’s wife. “Good evening, Mrs. Vikström. Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  “May I get you a plate?” This is nice of Maud Vikström, because what she really wants to ask is, What head?

  Manny stares at the “orange dinner” longer than is polite. “I don’t think so, not tonight. Looks good, though.” Manny glances around the dining room as if he has forgotten the reason for his visit.

  “So what’s going on?” asks Vikström. “Or is this a social visit?” He stands by his chair, uncertain whether to sit down. He hopes that whatever is “going on” won’t mean leaving his dinner to be heated up later in the microwave. Maud Vikström stares at Manny’s large, silver belt buckle showing the dying, spear-carrying Indian on the dying horse. She al
ways stares at it. Maybe she doesn’t know it represents a work of art; maybe she thinks it indicates a kind of fetish.

  Manny assumes a Would you ever believe it? expression, lifting his eyebrows and pursing his lips. “It looks like it wasn’t an accident after all—I mean the truck and Fat Bob business. It looks like it was done on purpose.” Manny’s been holding this back so that he can drop it on Vikström at dinnertime like a sharp object. He describes his talk with the woman over the music store who told him how the truck rushed backward to the street, and he describes his talk with J. Arthur Madison. “The guy said he saw a man signaling to the truck driver—what’s his name, Poppaloppa.”

  “Pappalardo.”

  “Whatever. He was making hand movements and Poppaloppa hit the gas. They had it all arranged. The guy doing the signaling looked like a short Elvis, or at least that’s what the witness told me.”

  “A short Elvis?”

  “You know, the hair. That’s what J. Arthur Madison said. He’s a lawyer. Do you remember seeing anyone like that? I vaguely remember something.”

  “Maybe. He may have been talking to a young guy with a tan, like he was the only person on the street with a tan. They drove off in his car, a little blue thing.”

  “So they’re in it together,” says Manny.

  “And maybe they’ve got nothing to do with it. Maybe you’re rushing things. Can I get back to my dinner now?”

  Manny shuffles his feet and gives Mrs. Vikström an apologetic look. “We need to talk to Fat Bob’s widow, and we need a picture.”

  Vikström has sat down and was just lifting his fork, which is now suspended in midair. “You kiddin’ me? That was supposed to have been done this afternoon.”

  He gets up again. He knows that Manny has put off this final bit of information for the moment when Vikström felt he could again sit down.

  “Phelps and Joanie were supposed to do it, but they got called off to a drug bust. You’d better get your coat. Temperature’s dropping.”

  Vikström makes a point of never swearing in front of his wife. As a result he’s tongue-tied.

  Manny looks sympathetic. If we have crocodile tears, we should also have “crocodile sympathy”—a wincing, squinched expression suggesting emotional pain. “Sorry to mess up your dinner,” says Manny. “Maybe we can grab a burger. G’night, Mrs. Vikström.”

  Manny pushes open the storm door as Vikström grabs his coat; then Vikström has to catch the door as it swings back and nearly hits him. He hurries out to Manny’s Subaru Forester parked at the curb. Manny prefers the Subaru to the Detective Bureau’s dark blue, unmarked Impala, saying that the Forester’s 2.0XT Touring model “has got big teeth,” meaning it does a good job of gripping the road. This is pure vanity on Manny’s part, but at least he’s had the Subaru equipped with a police radio at his own cost.

  As Vikström gets in, the Subaru starts to move.

  “Hey!” he calls.

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  But Vikström knows he isn’t sorry; it’s just that tonight’s steady flow of passive-aggressive behavior seems less passive than at other times. He also knows it goes back to that damn karaoke box. What can Vikström do at this late stage? There’s no point in saying sorry, no point in asking to be invited to the next musical evening; he can’t even shout, “Sing to me, sing to me!” It’s too late for that.

  Sometimes two weeks will go by when Manny’s passive-aggressiveness slips back to dormant aggressiveness. Then it begins again. Vikström doesn’t know why. Was it something I said? he wonders. So Vikström remains on alert, which is tiring. Two months back, around New Year’s, Vikström had been hearty and chummy and willing to let bygones be bygones, but Manny had seen through it. There’d been a mocking grin, a sarcastic snippet. “Who says you get off so easy?” Manny had asked.

  Now Vikström contents himself with brief displays of long-suffering patience. He sighs a lot.

  SIX

  It’s nearly eight, and Vasco had promised to meet him at seven, but Connor expected that—when had his brother ever been on time? Connor sits on a stool at the Scorpion Bar at Foxwoods, nursing a Corona and bypassing the many kinds of tequila and tequila drinks as he surveys the assortment of glitter with a south-of-the-border motif. The skulls on display at the entrance must belong to former customers. More skulls dot the walls around the room, as well as gaudy silver crosses. Behind the bar in a large glass box, a six-foot rattlesnake slithers back and forth. The music is loud, and Connor’s been told the go-go girls get busy at ten o’clock. The bar is one of those places meant to be an event by itself: the people sit quietly, while the bar, with its decor, flashing lights, and constant music, enacts the party. It saves people from the need to talk. About ten other men and women also sit at the bar; three jokers at a table share a forty-ounce turquoise tequila drink.

  When Connor called Vasco ten minutes earlier to see where he was, he got his voice mail. Connor asks himself how often this has happened in their life together. More than he can count. Slot machines chuckle in the distance; the casino has fifty-five hundred, over fifteen hundred more than Detroit’s MGM Grand. For several years the sound excited him; now it’s the sound of disappointment.

  As Connor waits, he thinks about his morning: the accident’s havoc and spectacle, but also Sal Nicoletti and his wife, especially the wife, with her long legs and then her black eyes, but they couldn’t really be black, maybe a dark brown. He thinks about her mouth and full lips, the curve of her figure. Recalling her, it’s as if Connor’s memory rests in a soft place. Then Vasco arrives.

  “Hey, Zeco, it’s great to see you. You mind if we eat here instead of the Paragon? I got an appointment coming up.”

  Connor gives his brother a hug, feeling the love and exasperation he often feels with Vasco, who is the only person who calls him Zeco, the name he changed when he left high school. “You mean burritos instead of wild boar tenderloin?”

  “You’re a sneaky guy, you’ve been peeking at the menu. Anyway, they got more than burritos. Me, I like the salads. You wearing the shoes? Let’s see.” Vasco steps back to look down at the Bruno Maglis. “Shit, Zeco, they make you look like a million bucks. Let’s grab a table in the back. I like to keep it private.”

  “You look pretty great yourself.” Connor follows Vasco to a table.

  Vasco wears a pin-striped suit with a vest, gray on gray, and black crocodile handmade Italian lace-up shoes that make the Bruno Maglis seem shabby. His black silk tie on his black silk shirt is no more than a shadowy flutter; his watch is a Rolex Day-Date with little diamonds instead of numbers. Vasco once told Connor that he had the left sleeves of his suit coats cut a little shorter than the right in order to show off his pricey watches. Connor had thought he was joking.

  Otherwise Vasco is thirty-two, about six feet, thin, and dark with black hair—a display of Portuguese Moorish blood. His face is narrow and long like an El Greco saint. When he smiles, his perfect teeth seem too white and his eyes don’t change. But he doesn’t smile often. He saves his smiles for when they count.

  Vasco shrugs. “You got to play the role. After all, it’s theater. The Rolex is a rental. How’s Bounty, Inc.? Still a bunch of clowns?”

  A cute waitress arrives with menus. “You know what you want, Mr. Raposo?”

  “Just a salad or something. I’m not that hungry.” He glances at the menu.

  Connor is impressed the waitress knows Vasco’s name and that she calls him “Mr.” But this is what Connor always does: he lets Vasco impress him. If Vasco works at the casino, there’s no reason the waitress wouldn’t know his name.

  When she leaves, they talk about Bounty, Inc. Connor makes it sound more businesslike than it is. He doesn’t mention the Eartha Kitt and Vaughn Monroe routines.

  “You would’ve made more money if you’d stayed in Detroit or at Viejas,” says Vasco. “You would’ve been promoted. I was seeing to that.”

  “Thanks, but I got tired of the casino life.”


  “Too much ring-a-ding and too many losers. That’s what I like about it.”

  “Right at the end, there was a guy who sat at his slot for forty-eight hours. He never left. When he had to shit or piss, he did it in his pants. That’s when I decided I’d had enough. They had to drag him away.”

  “Yeah, we’ve had those. The stink upsets the other players, but you get used to it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “When am I ever not serious?”

  As they talk, Vasco keeps glancing around the room, speaking to Connor but looking elsewhere. Connor knows he does this with everyone, but it makes him feel temporary, as if he were only occupying Vasco’s time while he waits for someone more important. He also knows this is how Vasco wants him to feel.

  “I saw an incredible accident this morning when I was picking up the shoes. A biker smashed into a dump truck in downtown New London. He was ripped in half, and his head’s still missing.”

  Vasco glances back at his brother. He has slow, dark eyes that make him look as if he were always watching combinations of numbers drift across an interior screen. “I saw something about it on the six-o’clock news. These bikers don’t get it. You go fast and don’t have a helmet, you get killed. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Pieces of this guy were thrown all over the place. I got stuck there. The street was closed for hours.”

  Connor continues his story, speaking rapidly to keep Vasco’s attention, but in his hurry his words turn the story into a dull outline stripped of the elements that Connor can’t forget. Vasco looks away again. For him the biker story is over.

  “The guy’s name was Marco Santuzza. I knew a kid named Santuzza in high school. You remember that name? And I saw a guy I knew from Detroit, maybe the MGM Grand. I was going to ask you about him. He said his name was Sal Nicoletti, though it meant nothing to me. He’s got thick, black hair swept back over his head. A short guy, with a finger-busting handshake: does that sound familiar?”