Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?: A Novel

by Stephen Dobyns

“I’ve forgotten. Hey, Vaughn, what was the number?”

  Vaughn spits out a number: Michigan area code, Detroit-area exchange. This is another of Vaughn’s skills. He’s their address book.

  Connor recognizes it as the number he’d called that morning: Roy’s number. He calls right away. When Roy answers, Connor asks, “You learn anything?”

  “You’re eager, aren’t you?” says Roy.

  Yes, thinks Connor, I’m eager. “Did you get Nicoletti’s real name?”

  “The fellow who gave evidence is Dante or Danny Barbarella… .”

  “And his wife?”

  “There’s a woman involved. Her name seems to be Céline. Maybe she’s the wife. Why the interest?”

  “Just curious.” Céline, Connor thinks, what a wonderful name.

  “She’s supposed to be beautiful.”

  “That’s true, she is.”

  “This Danny Barbarella is no hero. People will soon be rearrested for the second trial. Some folks want him dead. Did the feds really hide him in Rhode Island?”

  Connor wonders if he’s making another mistake, but at least he hasn’t mentioned New London. “Just keep quiet about it, will you?”

  “I could make a chunk of change with this,” says Roy thoughtfully.

  “What can I say? I can’t afford to give you money. You really want to be responsible for his death?”

  “That’s okay. These aren’t guys I want as friends. If you give them something, they always come back for more. So don’t sweat it.” Roy hangs up.

  Connor sits on the couch with his beer and engages in deep thoughts, though many would call it fretting. Despite the presence of Didi and the others, he feels alone in the room. He cares deeply for Didi, Eartha, and Vaughn, but they feel distant to him. It’s like caring deeply for a vaudeville act. And can he believe Roy? What choice does he have? And what about Vasco? And who’s Chucky with the soft hands who showed up at Vasco’s table? What is this everyday persona that people adopt in order to meet the world? They appear serious and diligent, but underneath they’re probably squealing as they dash like lemmings toward the ultimate pratfall. Whoops! And what do we have in the meantime? Maybe a few kisses in the dark.

  Digging his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his jacket, Connor calls Vasco. The phone rings for a bit and then goes to voice mail. As sometimes happens, Connor feels a whisper of rejection. “I need to talk to you,” he says.

  Again he thinks about Nicoletti. He wishes he’d never spoken to him, and now he’s carrying him on his back, or at least he feels that he’s hauling a heavy weight, a weight he can’t put down. Connor has no particular feelings for Nicoletti, but he’s concerned about his future, or rather its duration. He’s concerned about being responsible for his death. And there’s the wife, Céline. Now he has a name for her. Connor gets up and grabs his coat.

  “Where’re you going?” asks Didi.

  “I’ve got to go back to New London.”

  —

  Marco Santuzza lives, or lived, across the river in Groton, the “Submarine Capital of the World.” The Naval Submarine School is there, and it’s where the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, was launched in 1954. Santuzza’s house is on Godfrey, just north of Electric Boat, an older two-story house that Vikström can tell needs several coats of paint. Three cars are in the shoveled driveway. A shiny black Buick sedan has a church sticker in the rear window: ST. MARY STAR OF THE SEA.

  “Looks like she’s got the God boys already chatting her up,” says Manny as he gets out of the car.

  Vikström makes a grunting noise. His upset stomach from the banana split eaten in Brewster has been worsened by Manny’s sudden swerves and abrupt stops.

  The detectives stand by the Subaru and reflect on what might happen next. Because Santuzza’s head was found the previous night, they assume his widow has been notified of her husband’s death, though by rights they’re the ones who should have first brought the news, while accompanied by Groton police. That, however, is a labor they’re glad to have missed. Now they want to talk to her about Fat Bob and to get the names of Santuzza’s friends. It seems like a simple enough task.

  But as they proceed toward the front porch, they hear a cry: half weeping, half screaming. It builds to a crescendo and descends. The policemen have come into scenes like this often—hysterical grieving people—and they hate it, though neither has confessed this to the other. Manny Streeter hates the noise, the raw emotion. Benny Vikström hates his inability to give comfort. The door is open. They walk in.

  A woman shouts, “I’ll tell you one fuckin’ thing, I’m not going to bury him without his fuckin’ head! No fuckin’ way! It’s not fair!”

  “Maybe we should come back later,” says Vikström, “or let the Groton cops handle this.”

  Manny pretends not to hear him and enters the living room.

  A large woman in a baby blue Mother Hubbard sits in the middle of a cat-tattered couch. This is Caroline Santuzza, and her eyes are red and damp. A young priest sits to her left with a hand on her arm. He slowly shakes his head as if once again astonished by the world’s ravages. Two other women, about the same age and shape as the woman on the couch, sit in cat-tattered armchairs. Five cats are in the room, three sleeping, two prowling.

  Manny introduces himself and shows his ID; then he introduces Vikström. By rights Vikström should be doing the introductions, but Manny has entered the room first. Vikström wonders if this is meant to be another rudeness.

  “You found his fuckin’ head yet?” shouts Caroline Santuzza.

  Manny takes a step back. “We found it last night. We thought you’d been notified. The Groton cops were supposed to tell you. We’re New London.”

  “They only told me this morning Marco’d been killed! What kind of fuckin’ cops are you that it takes so long to find a fuckin’ head? It’s got a beard, for shit’s sake!” Mrs. Santuzza begins to weep again.

  The young priest gets to his feet and introduces himself as Father William. He shakes their hands. Then he winks at Vikström. “Are you one of those famous Swedish detectives I keep hearing about?”

  Vikström opens his mouth but says nothing. He thinks he’s being baited in a puzzling way. He ignores the priest, walks to the couch, and sits down next to Mrs. Santuzza. “D’you mind if we ask a few questions? I know this is an awful intrusion.”

  Vikström waits as the woman continues to weep. She has dyed reddish hair with a straight valley of gray roots down the center of her skull. It makes Vikström think of Moses separating the Red Sea. Mrs. Santuzza’s cheeks are round and pink, each like half a tennis ball; when she weeps, the tears pop straight out of her eyes and drop to her lap. “Like what?” she says after a few seconds.

  Vikström glances at Manny, who is poking around in his ear with his little finger. The two other women stare at Vikström as if he were a film star. “Like why was he riding Robert Rossi’s motorcycle?”

  This brings on another attack of weeping. “He wanted to buy it. Bob called yesterday morning and said he’d let him use it. Just to try it out, the son of a bitch.”

  “Fat Bob made him take it,” came a voice.

  Manny and Vikström turn to see a man seated in a straight chair by the wall. He sits next to a large green plant with red berries, and the detectives think that the plant must have hidden him when they first came in. The man is thin and red himself: red hair, red-freckled face, red ears, red shirt, red hands. The face is narrow and long, with high cheekbones and a long nose that looks sharp enough to cut bread. Some people resemble dogs, some people resemble monkeys, this man resembles a flame.

  “Who’re you?” asks Manny.

  “That’s Jack Sprat,” says one of the women. “He’s Caroline’s brother.”

  “Sprat?” says Manny.

  “It’s from the poem,” says the other woman. “Jack Sprat eats no fat and Caroline eats no lean. He’s always been Jack Sprat. It’s like a nickname.”

  Jack Sprat’s e
yes are like shooting sparks. He’s gotten to his feet, and in his narrowness and angularity he resembles a bolt of lightning.

  “Why d’you say that Fat Bob made Marco take the bike?” asks Vikström.

  The man shows his teeth. Maybe it’s a smile. “’Cause I knows what I knows.”

  “That’s not very helpful,” says Vikström.

  “Why the fuck should I be helpful?” says Jack Sprat.

  “What’s your real name?” says Manny. “Show us your ID.”

  There follows a brief verbal tussle as Jack Sprat says he won’t show them any ID and Manny says that he will. This ends when Manny holds up his handcuffs and says he’s taking Jack Sprat down to the Groton police station.

  So Jack Sprat takes out his driver’s license that indicates his real name is Giovanni Lambertenghi.

  Vikström and Manny trade a glance in which they inform each other that if their name were Giovanni Lambertenghi, they’d prefer to be called Jack Sprat as well. But they worry that to say such a thing might be considered an ethnic slur, and so they decide that Jack Sprat is a piece of work and they’d best ignore him.

  “When did Marco pick up the motorcycle?” Manny asks Mrs. Santuzza.

  “I dunno. He left here about eight. Fat Bob said he could keep it for the day, that Marco could drive it wherever. He fuckin’ took it to the cemetery.”

  “You call him Fat Bob?”

  “Everyone does: Fat Bob on the Fat Bob.”

  “He and your husband were friends?”

  The past tense of the verb “to be” leads to another spasm of tears. Then she notices Manny’s silver belt buckle with the dying Indian, and the tears come to a stop. She wipes her eyes with a dish towel decorated with prancing kittens.

  “I wouldn’t call them friends,” says Mrs. Santuzza, still staring at Manny’s belt buckle. “It’s a bike thing. I guess they’re friendly enough.”

  “And what about you—you don’t like him?”

  “He owes Marco money. Fat Bob gambles.” She says this as she might say Fat Bob beats his wife.

  “He’s a fuck!” says Jack Sprat, flickering and spitting flame. “He murdered Marco! He gave Marco the bike just to get him killed!”

  “You have proof of that?” asks Manny.

  “I don’t fuckin’ need proof!” says Jack Sprat, quivering. “I just know!”

  Manny meant to ask more about the gambling, but Jack Sprat has distracted him. Instead he asks, “What’d your husband do in his office in New London?”

  Marco Santuzza and Fat Bob were accountants, but Fat Bob works in an office at Burns Insurance and Santuzza worked by himself, doing people’s taxes and keeping track of their money. He had a small office on Bank Street. When Manny and Vikström hear this, they make quiet “Aha” noises.

  “No way am I going to ID Marco for you bastards. Father William says he’s in a bunch of pieces, like a puzzle. Use the DNA. Cops on the TV are always yakking about the DNA.”

  The Groton cops had already sent a state forensics team to Santuzza’s house for fingerprints and to take Marco’s hairbrush and electric razor for DNA profiling. This means less work for Manny and Vikström. By now the remnants of the body and its head have been sent to the state police forensics lab in Meriden, about an hour away. Manny imagines the happy cries of eager medical examiners as they await the brainteaser of putting Marco Santuzza back together again. Creeps.

  Vikström asks Mrs. Santuzza for the names of men that her husband knew. One that comes up often is Milo Lisowski, owner of the Hog Hurrah. Vikström writes down the names of five other men.

  Manny, standing to Vikström’s left, says “Poppaloppa” in a stage whisper.

  “That’s right,” says Vikström, who has forgotten. “Does your husband know Leon Pappalardo?”

  Mrs. Santuzza nods, dabs her nose, and again glances at the dying Indian. “They went to high school together in Brewster. They see each other now and then, mostly for fishing. And they’ve been here a coupla times for dinner. I didn’t like it.”

  “Why not?” asks Vikström.

  “He’s got bad breath. Smells like ripe roadkill.”

  Not anymore, thinks Manny.

  Vikström wonders what Pappalardo’s response would have been when he heard he’d mistakenly killed a friend. Surely he was angry at whoever had paid him.

  The next item to ask for is a key to Santuzza’s office so the police can search it, but Mrs. Santuzza doesn’t have one. She does, however, have a photo, which shows Marco sitting on an antique motorcycle and grinning. She’ll lend it to Vikström if he promises to return it.

  Several times Mrs. Santuzza has interrupted Vikström to ask about Marco’s funeral and if anything can be done about the disconnected head. Each question increases the degree of Manny’s irritation. The perverted woman keeps looking at his crotch, he’s sure of it. He’s slyly checked his zipper, but it’s shut. And he doesn’t like Jack Sprat either. He doesn’t like how he seems to flicker. Guys like that can go haywire in a nanosecond.

  “They can stick the head back on so you’d never know,” says Manny. “Put him in a nice turtleneck. As for the rest, they’ll put it in a plastic bag, put the bag inside the turtleneck, and put the turtleneck inside a black suit coat. Only the top half of the casket will be open, so nobody’ll see he doesn’t have feet.”

  Mrs. Santuzza begins to wail. Jack Sprat takes a step forward. Father William sits down beside Mrs. Santuzza and takes her hand. His face has turned red, and Manny thinks he looks like an angry beet.

  “You boys should leave,” he says. “You’re just making things worse.”

  As they descend the front steps, Vikström asks, “Why the hell d’you say that stuff about a plastic bag? I thought Jack Sprat was going to jump you.”

  “That Santuzza woman kept looking at my crotch,” says Manny angrily. “Anyway, it’s Groton, what’s it matter?”

  Belt buckle, thinks Vikström.

  —

  Connor is parked outside Sal Nicoletti’s house. It’s early in the afternoon. There’s no car in the drive; the garage door is shut. Spots of melted snow make dalmatian-like patches across the yard. He thinks about walking up to the house and ringing the bell, but what would he do if someone answered?

  Well, if it were Sal, he’d ask if he was really the Danny Barbarella who testified against his ex-pals in Detroit. Then he’d see how Sal responded. Next he’d tell Sal that he’s probably blown his cover by telling Vasco. The very thought sends small, icy feet prancing up and down the back of Connor’s neck. Sal might possibly shoot him. Connor takes his cell phone from his pocket, looks at it for a moment, and then puts it away. Minutes pass. Nothing changes, neither Sal’s house nor the weather nor Connor’s problem. His options are to sit here until someone shows up or to do something. He again takes his cell phone and holds it tightly. Connor can almost hear the seconds click by. He calls his brother.

  Unexpectedly, Vasco answers on the second ring. “Hey, Zeco, what’s happening?”

  Caller ID, thinks Connor. There are no surprises anymore. “Who’s Danny Barbarella?”

  There’s a slight hesitation. “Who’s it again?” asks Vasco. People are laughing in the background, and there is some kind of music.

  “Danny Barbarella.”

  “Jesus, Connor, you keep asking me about these wops. I don’t know any of them. We’re tugos aren’t we? Ask me about a tugo.”

  “Barbarella was revenue audit supervisor at the MGM Grand until he testified against some of his fellow employees in an embezzling case. You had to have heard of it.” Connor hopes if he questions his brother aggressively enough, he’ll break through Vasco’s mild teasing—or is it goading?

  “When was this?”

  “Last fall sometime.”

  Vasco laughs a metallic laugh. “Look, I wasn’t even in Detroit last fall. I spent two months working at some Biloxi casinos.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Work work.”

 
“You got pepped up when I mentioned Sal Nicoletti. You saw it as something you could sell.”

  Vasco laughs again. “I never get pepped up.”

  “Okay, so you blinked several times. Here’s this Sal Nicoletti, previously Danny Barbarella, in the feds’ secret witness program, and I made the mistake of talking about him to you without knowing the case. And these guys who took the money haven’t even been convicted yet. They’re out on bail waiting for a second trial. If you sell the information, you’ll get Sal killed and it’ll be my fault.”

  “This is a pretty complicated story, little brother. How can I sell information about Nicoletti if I don’t know him?” Vasco appears to be getting bored.

  Connor starts to accuse his brother of lying, but why should he expect Vasco to tell the truth? For Connor the reason exists in their being brothers, that his relationship with Vasco needs the seemingly secure foundation that truth could provide. How foolish. Vasco has always kept him at arm’s length, just as he keeps everyone at arm’s length. What Connor wants is a lessening of that length, that despite appearances to the contrary his brother loves him. Yet none of this, Connor thinks, has anything to do with Sal Nicoletti. It just muddies the water.

  “Does Chucky know him? You might have told Chucky.”

  “How can I tell Chucky anything I don’t know myself? You seem confused.”

  “Because you work for Chucky. You realized from me that Sal was really Danny Barbarella, and you sold the information to Chucky.”

  “Fuck you, little brother, I know nothing. Call me the next time you’re in town.” Vasco cuts the connection.

  Connor is squeezing the cell phone hard enough to make his hand ache. He releases it and looks toward the house. Still no movement. He’s angry at Vasco’s apparent lie, and his feelings are hurt that his brother lied to him. Again he asks, is Sal really Danny Barbarella? But he’s ninety percent sure of it. In any case, all he has to do is ask Sal the question and see how he responds. Connor’s angry that he let himself get into this mess. He knows he’s being indecisive, but he has no wish to walk across the yard to the door. Is he afraid of Nicoletti? Well, yes, he is. When Nicoletti learns what Connor has done, he could explode. This scares Connor, but he’s still positive he should tell Sal that he’s talked to Vasco. No, not should but must. The wisest thing, Connor decides, is to wait in the car till someone shows up, whether it’s Sal or Céline, but he’d prefer Céline. Then he wonders if he is emotionally capable of identifying the wisest thing.