Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?: A Novel

by Stephen Dobyns

  Eartha grins. “At least he’s happy.” She wiggles her shoulders in a mild shimmy. “I thought you liked my tits.”

  “It’s not a matter of not liking them. I told you, they’re distracting.”

  “And I said that’s their purpose. I sure didn’t get them built up for reasons of health. Here in this damn Winnebago, they just get wasted—visually, I mean.”

  Connor looks at them quickly and looks away. “A guy I know was killed today. He was shot in the head. I found him sitting at his desk. Somebody had shoved a red plastic rose in the bullet hole. I think the whole thing’s my fault.”

  Eartha puts a hand over her mouth. “Is that true?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it. He was in some kind of witness-protection program. I didn’t know that, and I told my fucking brother about him. I feel sick about it. It’s like I shot him myself.”

  Connor hadn’t meant to tell Eartha; now he tells her almost out of malice to take the attention away from her breasts. Bad news reduces their drama. He also wants another person to share the weight of his knowledge.

  “His name’s Sal Nicoletti. I mentioned giving him a ride from the accident the other day. He’s got a beautiful wife and two little kids. I feel like something inside me’s about to pop. It just presses against my gut.”

  Connor goes to the couch that folds out into his bed. He imagines being in the bed all folded up like the ham in a ham sandwich. He envies inanimate objects.

  Eartha puts on a bathrobe and comes to sit by his side. “Did you see the person who shot him?”

  “No. I went to Sal’s office to talk to him, and he was dead. Nobody else was around except a homeless guy. I can’t get that fucking flower out of my mind. I can’t get any of it out of my mind. It just goes round and round.”

  Eartha puts a hand on Connor’s brow. It feels cool to him.

  “Do you want a drink? Didi’s got some whiskey.”

  “No, thanks. A girl downtown gave me a bottle of water. It was nice of her.”

  “You want to go in our room and try to sleep? You can shut the door, and I’ll be quiet.”

  “Maybe I’ll try it.” Connor gets to his feet and looks down at her. “You’re a good person. I appreciate it.”

  Eartha gives another little shimmy with her shoulders. “I’m only a good person some of the time. Other times I can be a monster.” She stands up and gets a glass from the cupboard. “Just a small glass of whiskey. It’ll help.”

  Five minutes later Connor is lying on the big bed in the bedroom. He’s taken off his shoes and finished his whiskey. The room reeks of sex. It’s like a colorless, ectoplasmic blob suspended in the air, something the size of a hippo. Connor is positive he’ll never go to sleep. Then he goes to sleep.

  —

  It’s dark when Eartha wakes him. He has no idea of the time.

  “You’ve got a phone call. It’s a woman.”

  Connor scrambles out of bed. “Is Didi here?”

  “He’s not back yet.”

  Connor is sure it’s the young woman who gave him the water. But he’s wrong. It’s Céline.

  “Are you busy? Can you come over here? Can you come right away?”

  FIFTEEN

  Fidget sits cross-legged on a cheap blue poly tarp, which is the floor of his hutch. Another poly tarp forms the roof. The sides are cardboard reinforced by two shopping carts. A concrete bridge abutment forms the back. “Temporary lodgings” is what he calls it, because soon the police will demolish it or another, stronger, meaner bum will take the pieces for himself. Lots of unpleasant things can happen under the bridge, so he’d never think of it as home. That’s just tempting bad luck.

  Next to Fidget sits his Terror, and his Terror explains in its hoarse voice that Fidget has overreached. His Terror sits beside him because it’s so big that there’s not enough room for it in Fidget’s interior. His Terror tells Fidget that he’s endangered himself by being greedy. First there was the seventy-seven dollars in Santuzza’s wallet. That was okay. Like, who’d ever know? Then there was the hundred twenty-six dollars in Sal Nicoletti’s wallet. That was less than okay, but it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t overreaching so much as stretching, the kind of stretch that can give a little cramp. But he should have been satisfied with the two hundred three dollars and quit while he was ahead. Who tells him this? His Terror tells him this. In fact, his Terror has been telling him lots of stuff and all of it negative—that is, it’s terrifying.

  On the surface of the blue poly tarp within the small well formed by Fidget’s crossed legs lie five gold chains, three gold rings (one with diamonds), a gold pinkie ring with a large ruby, a gold bracelet, a Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II watch with an eighteen-karat yellow-gold case and eighteen-karat yellow-gold bracelet, plus a sprinkling of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. Anything else? Oh, yes, a Montegrappa St. Moritz Limited Edition Woods eighteen-karat-gold rollerball pen. Why couldn’t Fidget have stopped himself? his Terror asks. What was he thinking? His Terror can easily count off the names of twenty men and several women who’d murder Fidget for only one of the gold chains. Fidget calculates that he has twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. In point of fact, it’s closer to five times that. Sal Nicoletti or Dante Barbarella carried his value on his exterior. His interior was worth about two cents.

  A few minutes earlier, Fidget had put on the watch, the bracelet, the rings, and chains. Then, on a rumpled paper bag, he drew a smiley face with the Montegrappa pen. Momentarily he felt like a million bucks. Then his Terror took over. Two of the big nugget rings were on his right hand, and the one with diamonds was on the left along with the pinkie ring. Otherwise Fidget’s hands were smeared with dirt and grease; black crescents of filth topped his fingernails. It formed a nice contrast. He was moronic, and his hands were oxymoronic. Fidget had hurriedly removed the jewelry and put it in the well formed by his crossed legs. Then he shivered a little.

  What can Fidget do with the bling? Can he sell it? No. Can he pawn it? No. Can he trade it for a Cadillac car? No, no, no! The very first proof of its existence will get him killed. Or perhaps the cops will guess who it belonged to and beat the shit out of him. That would be the softer, gentler way. But Fidget is fragile. Even a mild beating would finish him off. And if he did manage to survive it, he’d land in prison, where he’d have to lick the toes of the tough guys. What was he thinking? But the very chance of having the gold had driven him crazy. Gold is like that: it drives you nuts. So it isn’t his fault; it’s the gold’s fault. It made Fidget overreach himself. Gold has had a long and brutal history as the causative factor in that area of human experience.

  As Fidget stares at the gold, his Terror explains that he must hide it and hide himself. The best idea would be to return it, but that idea is too painful even for his Terror. Anyway, who can he return it to? Sal’s dead. And Fidget can’t stand the thought of the nugget rings leaving his hands and finding a home on another’s. So he has to hide the gold and he can’t hide it in his hutch.

  It seems to Fidget that he now has a plan. In fact, he has only the shadow of a plan. He scoops up the gold, puts it in his pockets, and crawls out of his hutch. As for his tail, he doesn’t have time to think of his tail, but it droops along behind him.

  —

  Manny Streeter and Vikström are back in the Detective Bureau’s office at police headquarters: a bunch of scratched desks and wobbly chairs, light green walls, dusty fluorescent lights that hum. The sun has gone down, and the building is quiet. They’ve learned that Rhode Island has called the Detective Bureau to say the shotgun that killed Pappalardo was likely the same gun that Céline gave the detectives, though further tests need to be done. Manny and Vikström have expected this, but when confirmation came from the Rhode Island cop, Woody Potter, the New London detectives feel all the satisfaction found in finishing a good meal. And what’s for dessert? Mrs. Pappalardo also told Potter that her husband and Marco Santuzza were friendly and sometimes hung out together, whic
h corroborates what Mrs. Santuzza said. This, to Manny, feels like progress.

  Manny and Vikström have also learned that forensics has found matches for the fingerprints in Sal’s office. One set belongs to Céline, which is worrisome since she said she’d never visited his office. On the other hand, falsehood is familiar to the detectives. It comes with the job. So even though they hadn’t expected a lie, it was almost as if they had expected one. In their world everyone lies.

  But it seems unlikely that Céline had shot Sal. It had been too good a shot, and the red plastic rose didn’t feel like Céline. It was tacky; she’s not tacky. But neither did it feel like anyone else in New London. Most likely a guy is mowing his lawn in a Cincinnati suburb and he gets a call on his cell phone that sends him on a plane to Providence or Boston or New York. He’s then driven to New London, given a pistol, taken over to Bank Street, and does what he’s paid to do. Now he’s back in Cincinnati trimming a hedge. As for the rose, who knows what it means? Hit men can be sentimental like anyone else. As for the Yukon Denali, Manny and Vikström assume it had false plates. They’ll look for it, but it won’t be an optimistic sort of looking.

  Other fingerprints in the office belonged to Marco Santuzza and Fat Bob Rossi. Marco’s aren’t surprising. After all, he was Sal’s neighbor down the hall. But Fat Bob’s aren’t so easily understood. What was the connection there?

  It’s clear, however, that Sal was the one who signaled Pappalardo to tromp on the gas and send the truck hurtling back across Bank Street. It’s also clear that Sal expected Fat Bob to come roaring along on the Fat Bob and was surprised when the rider turned out to be Marco Santuzza. Whoops.

  “So let’s say,” Manny Streeter opines, “that Poppaloppa doesn’t mind obliterating Fat Bob for a fat chunk of change, but he wouldn’t want to whack Marco, who’s his buddy. What’s he going to do?”

  “Maybe it’s more important to ask what Sal thinks Pappalardo will do.”

  “Maybe both,” says Manny, “but I’ll bet Sal no longer trusts him.”

  “Maybe Pappalardo tries to blackmail him,” says Vikström. “Or threatens him or yells at him.”

  “In any case, he doesn’t trust Poppaloppa to keep his mouth shut.”

  “So Sal whacks him with the shotgun, okay. But maybe Sal is whacked by a friend of Pappalardo’s.”

  “And the plastic rose?” asks Manny.

  “If it’s not meant as a signature, maybe it’s meant as a distraction. Like the fedora was a distraction. All people can remember is the fuckin’ fedora. Anyway, the Rhode Island state cop is checking on Pappalardo’s Rhode Island friends.”

  “What about Fat Bob? If Sal tried to whack Fat Bob with a dump truck, then Fat Bob must have a reason to have Sal whacked.”

  “Maybe the hit wasn’t done by a guy in Cincinnati,” says Vikström, “but by someone in Providence or Boston, someone in the East who Fat Bob could contact. These bikers have networks. They’re like a cult.”

  “So who shot up Fat Bob’s Fat Bob and caused it to blow up?”

  “It had to be someone that Fat Bob owes money to,” says Vikström. “Until that person saw the bike in front of Angelina’s house, he probably thought Fat Bob was dead. When he sees he’s alive, he figures he still has a chance to get his money.”

  “So he threatens him or scares him.”

  Vikström nods. “Maybe we should find out if Lisowski has a pistol permit.”

  Manny and Vikström have their feet up on their desks and lean back in their swivel chairs with their hands behind their heads. They would hate to hear this, but at the moment they share a family resemblance. The main difference is Manny’s black eye, which has turned dark purple. So when he’s not cradling his head, he sits with his elbow on the arm of the chair and his hand over the eye. In this way Manny looks as if he’s engaged in serious thought tinged with sadness.

  “You get many fights at your karaoke whatchamacallit?” Vikström asked earlier.

  “It’s happened.” Manny’s tone was suspicious, as if any mention of the karaoke box by Vikström was sure to lead to trouble.

  “Police ever been called?”

  “Why the fuck would the police be called? I’m the police!”

  “I thought maybe a neighbor would call the police to complain about the noise. You know, the shouting and chairs breaking.”

  “It’s soundproofed. Anyway, no chairs have ever been broken.”

  “Tipped over, then. I mean loudly.”

  Manny knew that Vikström had no interest in the karaoke box. Instead he was purposefully being irritating to balance out those occasions when Manny himself had been purposefully irritating. “I don’t think the guy ever meant to hit me. He just happened to be swinging his arms.”

  “Like to the music.”

  “Yeah, to the music.”

  Now, as he sits with his feet on his desk, Vikström asks, “You ever have dancing in your karaoke whatchamacallit? You know, Charleston dancing?”

  Manny doesn’t like this, but he keeps quiet.

  “I should think the Charleston dancing could make a lot of noise. And people could trip and fall.”

  “We got to find Fat Bob.”

  Vikström regrets that his chance to needle his partner has to come to an end. “Maybe he’s dead.”

  “We still got to find him. That fucking red rose irritates the shit outta me.”

  “We got cars looking for Fat Bob.”

  “Okay, let’s go find Fidget and see if he took the gold.”

  “We got people looking for Fidget as well. Maybe the gold was taken by the young guy with the tan.”

  “I doubt it,” says Manny. “That shrink guy across the street saw Fidget drop some gold, or what looked like gold. Anyway, it’s easier to start with Fidget. We know where he hangs out.”

  It’s nice to have a plan, and the detectives mentally prepare themselves to rise from their chairs to make a businesslike exit: their muscles tense, and their thoughts focus on the I-95 bridge, where they expect Fidget to be found.

  But there’s an interruption. Detective Sergeant Masters enters with two men whom Manny and Vikström haven’t seen before: about forty, very fit, neatly dressed, shoes polished, nice haircuts, shiny pink faces. Although the men are complete strangers, Manny and Vikström know who they are.

  And the two men recognize Manny and Vikström, or at least they think they do, because they see two rumpled city cops leaning back in their chairs with their feet on their desks and their mouths slightly open to gape at the intruders.

  Detective Sergeant Masters displays all the agitation of a society hostess introducing the hired help to local billionaires. Names are exchanged.

  “I bet he’s one of those famous Swedish detectives,” says one man to the other. They chortle.

  “You should have notified us before the forensics guys tramped all over the crime scene,” says the other man. “Dante Barbarella’s our baby.”

  Manny stands up. He sticks out his lower lip and appears clumsy, confused. “And who did you guys say you were? Maybe TV journalists, right?”

  “Stop it, Manny,” says Detective Sergeant Masters. “These gentlemen are taking over the case. Any assistance you can give them will be greatly appreciated.”

  —

  The FBI agents’ names are Orville Percival and Henry Lascombe, and they’re here because Sal Nicoletti, also known as Danny Barbarella, is supposed to appear in federal court in Detroit as the main witness in an embezzlement case that we have heard about before. The agents only know that Danny is dead and that he was the victim of an apparent contract hit. They know nothing about Fat Bob Rossi or Marco Santuzza or Leon Pappalardo, nor are they interested. And if Vikström told them Fat Bob was a prime suspect, Percival and Lascombe—known to one another as Percy and Hank—would snort. Nor would they care that some folks have taken potshots at Fat Bob and blown up a motorcycle. It only muddies the water. And if Fat Bob were shot, they’d shed no tears, because for them Fat Bob’
s not part of the equation.

  But Fat Bob’s not dead yet. We don’t know where he is; most likely he’s out riding around. He’s like a fly that refuses to settle. Fat Bob believes that people want to kill him—not just Sal, who he thinks is still alive, but lots of people. He’s been afraid this might happen. He’s wheedled too much money from too many folks and hasn’t paid them back. It’s like making a tower with playing cards. It’s short-lasting. There’s always a wind building up.

  And people are blaming Fat Bob for Marco’s death, but he still tells himself it was an accident. He’d lent Marco a motorcycle as collateral for the money he owed him. Fat Bob had no idea that he was setting Marco up to be killed. Does Fat Bob believe this? He’s working hard to believe it.

  Fat Bob knows he should never have tried to get money out of Sal. We see no reason to keep this secret. He had gone down the hall with Marco Santuzza to meet this new guy, this new accountant, and Fat Bob had recognized the guy from a Detroit casino. But he should never have called him Danny. He should never have let him know that he knew where he came from—meaning Detroit, meaning the court case—and that he’d been testifying against his former pals. Wiping out Fat Bob on a Fat Bob—that was Sal’s or Danny’s kind of humor, even if Fat Bob had mistakenly killed Santuzza. So no way is Fat Bob going to settle down someplace, except for nights of fitful sleep, when he imagines trouble on his trail.

  —

  The Winnebago this Wednesday evening doesn’t offer much of a domestic scene. Connor is gone, and the others are having dinner: spaghetti and meatballs with a green salad. Didi, when he first contacted Eartha, didn’t expect her to have cooking skills, though she’s not a serious chef. She just cooks, and she often cooks topless, unless she’s cooking pork chops or burgers and the oil splatters.

  Eartha has told Didi that Connor arrived in the afternoon with a dreadful story. He’d described Sal Nicoletti sitting in his office chair with a hole in the middle of his forehead and a red plastic rose stuck in the hole. And he said that Nicoletti’s real name was Danny Barbarella and he was from Detroit. Maybe Eartha forgets some stuff and maybe she gets some of it mixed up, but she remembers that Connor accused his brother Vasco. “He said Vasco sold the information to some other guys from Detroit and those guys got Nicoletti shot.”