"It's on a pilot."
"So, not to light your stove. What else can you do with kitchen matches?"
"Agnes, you go in the bedroom, you lock the door," he says.
I got to hand it to him. He thinks he's got a crazy on his hands and he's thinking of the wife.
"What about my program?" she asks, whining like a pup.
"What's it matter?"
She gets up and goes into the next room, dragging her feet like a kid and twitching her unappetizing rump at me like it will drive me mad and I will attack her on the threadbare rug right in front of her husband.
"You didn't answer me what I asked you," he says.
"What's that?"
"I asked you was you a cop."
"I'm not a cop."
"So get the hell out of here."
"I'm a concerned citizen."
"So, go vote."
"I'm also a precinct captain over to the Twenty-seventh where the girl was killed." I take out my money clip, separate a twenty, and hand it to him. "What's a couple of questions?"
"Was it match heads what was used in that bomb that blew up the clinic?" he says, taking the twenty.
I looked surprised . . . because I'm surprised. "You rolling over this easy? You ready to confess to the first stranger that comes along with twenty bucks in his hand?" I says.
"You crazy? I done nothing except go down to Sperry Avenue to see this girl is really going to go through with it."
"With what?"
"Getting rid of a kid. What do you think they was doing down there, having a floating crap game?"
"Oh, I know what they was doing and I know what those people marching outside the place was doing. I know they was dropping dripping red knives on the step. I know they were cutting off cats' heads."
"Don't look at me. I done none of that. All I done . . ."
"You signed up with that bunch, didn't you?"
". . . was do a favor. Hey! What am I going to do? Some redheaded hag with a mole on her chin shoves a membership card under my nose and gives me five bucks should I sign it."
"Why would she give you five bucks for that?"
"How the hell should I know? Maybe the head of the organization was giving out prizes to the one who signed up the most members. You know, how they do in real-estate offices and used-car lots. Sales man of the month."
"So you sign and take the five."
"And I go inside to see is the girl in the waiting room."
"Is she?" I ask, waiting for him to tell me the girl he was eyeballing is the one with the old woman.
But he tells me, "No, I don't see her."
"See who? I mean, what's the name of this girl you're checking up on?"
"Helen Addison. It ain't her real name."
"Who wanted her checked out?" I says.
"The pimp upstairs."
"Why? Does he want to make sure she's having the abortion?"
"He gives me twenty dollars. That ain't enough for me to go looking into his . . . motivation."
A smile clicks on and off, like a bulb. He's used a new word and didn't break his tongue on it.
"Where was the girl?" I says.
"Well, she was inside the other room, wasn't she? Otherwise she wouldn't of got herself blown to hell."
"What did you do when the bomb went off?"
"I got the hell out of there quick, didn't I? What do I got to do for twenty, spend a night talking to cops?"
"You see an old lady?"
"I think. She was sitting with another kid waiting to get—"
"I don't mean that one. I mean another. Probably wearing a white coat or a smock."
"Yeah. I saw her. I walked over to the hallway and saw her go into a room what said 'Operating' on it."
"She see you?"
"She didn't look. I didn't hang around there. The doorknob rattled on another door. I turned around and went back to the waiting room. I took a seat. I was going to wait for this Helen to come out."
"You know what she looked like? You got a picture of her?"
"Oh, no, I see her before. I see her upstairs."
"Sometimes you work for cash, sometimes for trade?"
"Sometimes," he says, and grins. "Good stuff."
I turn to the door.
"Hey," he says, "where you going?"
"Upstairs."
"Don't you think what I told you is worth another twenty?"
"I figure you for a man who doesn't care about rewards when it comes to doing his civic duty."
"How about ten?"
"I'll send you a municipal citation."
"You don't got to go upstairs you want to play. My old lady's waiting for you right behind that door. Fifty bucks."
I take it back. He was not thinking of the wife, only how to use her.
"You stay out of the sand," I says. "You'll get a sore belly."
ELEVEN
Upstairs, at the end of a long corridor of doors with painted windows on both sides, there's another door all wood with a Judas hole in the middle of it. I knock and the slide clicks back. I see a black marble in the middle of some egg white staring at me. The door opens a crack. A voice speaks to me on the level of my belly button from a face as black as anthracite.
"You can't come in," the voice of a woman pretending to be a man, or vice versa, says.
"If you don't, Jessie, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down."
"Go away, Flannery. You're nothing but trouble," Jessie says.
"That is not what you said when I got your brother out of jail on that breaking-and-entering charge."
"That was then, and now is now."
"You want I should go get Vice and kick this door down, Jessie?"
It takes a minute, then the door is opened. On the other side of it is a three-step ladder and Jessie Acacia, who is very short and round, with a head of frizzy hair, sometimes yellow and sometimes green. At the moment it's half and half.
"You don't got to call Vice," she says. "Stick around. They'll all be by for a treat sooner or later."
"You show me where the man sits and get out of my way, Jessie . . ."
"Now just a second . . ."
". . . or I'll walk right over you."
"You Irish bastard, I'll spit and break your knee caps."
"I ain't got time to give you a hug," I says, walking by her toward a door in the back of the hall that has a curtain on the window.
"Hurry back," she says. "I got a favor you should do for me."
I walk into the office, which was once a kitchen, just as Bo Addison puts down the phone.
This Bo Addison is wearing four-hundred-dollar snake-skin shoes, a peach velour suit, and a satin shirt with gold nuggets for cuff links. He smells like a field of lilacs.
"You took a bath," I says.
He showed me his teeth, which ain't even as yellow as they was when he was a poor junk sculptor just a few days ago. I think the man is a chameleon, he's changed so much.
"You lied to me, Bo," I says. "You tell me you ain't a pimp while talking like a pimp, which you figure is not what a pimp would do."
"If I was Bo, I wouldn't have lied to you," he says. "I would have told you to fuck off."
I lean over to get a better look. It ain't Bo. "You got a twin," I says.
"I got a foolish brother," he says.
"So, tell me what I call you."
"Mr. Addison is nice. What can I do for you, Mr. Precinct Captain Flannery?" He grins and points a clean finger with a well-buffed nail at the floor and Ciccone's flat below.
"Your reputation precedes you," he says.
"What was your brother doing over to Badger Street?"
"My grandmother lives there. She won't live any where else no matter how hard I try to move her."
"My old man is the same way. It ain't good to take them out of the old places. Who's your grandmother?"
"Hester Bowling."
"I know her."
"She says you do. She names you when I see you
talking to my brother from the window. We was doing some heavy work for her."
"Your brother recruit for you?"
"Sometimes I get him in a suit and let him work the Greyhound station or the parks."
"You let him break any of the rookies in?"
He laughs like I give him a funny thought. "Nookie-rookies," he says. "Bo gets what he can get."
"He fell in love with Helen Caplet?"
"I never said he was smart."
"You're smart, though."
"Yes, I'm smart," he says.
"You're a pimp, and pimps are smart, is that right?"
He's not smiling anymore.
I'm a social director," he says. "I supply companions and entertainment . . ."
"You're a spoiler and a merchant."
". . . for all sorts of functions and affairs and for . . ."
"You're a trader. A peddler . . ."
". . . some of the most important politicians and dignitaries in the city."
". . . but this is your way of making a living, and I'm not here to pass judgment on you."
"Am I suppose to thank you for that?"
"They come here?"
"What?"
"These important people . . . they come here?"
"Sometimes they come here. But this is more like basic-training camp, you know what I mean? Most of the girls in this camp got no polish yet."
"Who comes here?"
"Blow on out of here, Flannery. This ain't even your turf. You're maybe a big dog over to the Twenty-seventh, but you're just a dog turd over here. This is the Twenty-fifth. This is Velletri's ground."
"How come a black has got Velletri for a Chinaman?"
"Hey, come alive, man, this is the age of black power in Chicago. What color is the mayor?"
"There's still Velletri."
"Even guineas like to get their ashes hauled before they go to church."
"So you won't give me names."
"I won't give you nothing."
"I'll go over to Badger Street and tell your grandmother what you do to make her living," I says.
It's like he gets mad and sad at the same time. He jerks his eyes away from mine and stares up at the corner of the room, looking for some demon who could maybe strike me dead.
Every soul has a soft spot. His grandmother was Addison's.
"What was Helen Caplet . . . Addison . . . whatever she called herself from one day to another, doing over to Sperry Avenue having an abortion?"
"You think whores don't get caught?"
"I don't think whores get caught as much today as maybe they used to. But I do think whores get sentimental sometimes, and hungry for a husband or a baby. I think they start dreaming the wrong dreams with the wrong customer. Maybe the John goes along with the lovey-dovey. Why not? It makes the loving sweeter. Maybe he's the dreamer. Maybe because they talk about the future, the whore don't charge a price anymore and that makes the customer feel like a big man."
A laugh rolls up out of Addison's chest. Didn't he know what fools men could make of themselves when it came to women? Even women they'd want no part of outside of bed?
"Ah, you know, sure you do," I says. "Half the men in Chicago dream about being a pimp, being a devil with women, having a stable, having a dozen women roll over for them at the snap of a finger."
"Hell, they couldn't take the heat," Addison says. "They couldn't do the necessary."
"Or maybe it was your brother gave her the baby and you didn't want a good soldier taken out of the line. And didn't want your-brother's head scrambled by a honky whore."
"If it was that way, I would've give her to him. What the hell do I care? This world makes whores faster than you and me can use them up."
"But it don't make brothers."
"Bo lives his own life. I don't fret about it."
"So, who was the con who conned the con, the whore-monger who turned the whore? Who was this Helen and who was her mark?"
"I don't know."
"Ah, don't you be a fool."
"I truly do not know."
"Am I supposed to believe that?"
"Helen wasn't in my string. She was independent. She came and went as she pleased. I just give her a place to do her thing. I contract her some customers when there's more action than my regular girls can take."
"Why would you waste your time on a woman you don't own?"
"Every fish don't take the bait the same," Addison says. "A good fisherman, he's patient. There would come a time . . ."
There always comes a time.
". . . when she would want a favor. Want a thousand for a coat. Want a couple lines of coke. I know how to wait. I ain't a rough man with these women, Flannery."
"She was somebody's favorite."
"That could be. That could very well be."
"She give you a number where you could reach her when you needed her for an extra?"
"She does me the courtesy of calling in every morning when she's willing to work."
"You slipped Ciccone a twenty . . ."
"A tenner."
". . . to see that Helen really did have an abortion?"
"I do the favor for a man who calls me on the phone."
"A customer?"
"I don't know the voice."
"But it could have been a customer of yours?"
"Sure, and it could have been one of the special reserve Helen keeps for herself."
"So why do you do a blind favor that costs you even a ten?"
"Because he sends over a hundred by messenger. I'm a businessman."
"Is that all you're going to give me?"
"That's all I got."
I don't think so. I think he's been told to clam up. I caught him just hanging up the phone. I figure, since it only takes a minute for Ciccone to tip him off about me, I caught Addison checking in with somebody else. Otherwise he could have given me what he knew about a dead whore and he would have had my marker for some day.
I have the feeling that somebody might be quick enough to be waiting for me downstairs. When nobody's waiting for me, I relax so quick it gives me a pain in the back.
TWELVE
My old man is gone home by the time I get back to my flat. The place already looks and smells different. I'm reminded of something my father told me long ago. "Women are powerful," he said. "They'll change the world."
I see, now, he means my world.
"You've been a long time," Mary said. "Did you get what you went after?"
"You shouldn't have waited up," I says.
She takes my coat and hat. She sits me down in the big chair. She sits on the floor and takes off my shoes.
"Listen to me, James," she says. "I won't interfere in what you do. I won't complain about how late you have to stay out to do it sometimes. I won't even insist you tell me anything you think I shouldn't know. Those are things you have all the say about. But I'll do what I do. And one of the things I'll do is wait up for you as long as we're under the same roof together. If I'm living alone, I'll sleep alone, but if I'm living with you, I won't sleep alone. Not ever. Not if I can help it."
"I've got to get used to it," I says. "I been coming home to an empty house—not even a cat—for eight years."
"Do you want something to eat?"
I realize, with some surprise, that I'm hungry. She knows that too. Pretty soon she'll be throwing me over her shoulder and burping me. I don't mind.
She makes me some scramble and ham. While I'm eating I tell her everything I done. It feels so good to have someone to talk to.
The phone rings.
"Two o'clock in the morning," Mary says.
"It can't be good news," I says.
When I lift up the receiver, at first I think I got a breather. Then a voice says, "Check it out. There was a bullet in Helen Caplet."
Down at the morgue I got a friend I go to school with when we was in grammar school.
When we're thirteen and fourteen Eddie Fergusen and Dick Hodgson and me run around afte
r school. We play softball and toss baskets and squeeze Sheila Coletti's big tits on the school steps after the sun goes down in the summer. We're the Three Musketeers and buy us jackets which is all the same—black with red braiding—but we ain't a gang like the gangs that made trouble.
Except once we decide to steal.
Mr. Fidel owns the candy store on the corner in the neighborhood where we play pinball and drink cherry phosphates. He's a grouch with a quick temper. He tosses somebody out and bans them forever and ever, about five times a week. He would've had no customers younger than twenty, except nobody believes him and are back the next day. The only one he really likes is Eddie, because Eddie is the sweetest con you'd ever meet, even at fourteen.
Fidel has this kid, Ernie Kepler, who's clever with his hands, fixing clocks and watches and things like toasters. He's got him in the back room doing repairs and taking 50 percent: that's exploitation. He's not declaring his earnings to the federal government: that's fraud. He's stashing the undeclared cash in the ice-cream freezer: that's tempting.
We figure we got a case against him and he should be taught a lesson, not to exploit Ernie Kepler and not to defraud the government. So, one week in summer, we make up this plan to break and enter through the window in the alley to the back room, then through the connecting door to the candy store, to which Eddie says he's got a key which works.
Eddie tells us this, just like he tells us he'll leave his softball and mitt in the back room for some reason, and come back for it just at the minute Fidel is going to lock the front door. Then he'll open the catch on the alley window so we don't got to break it.
After supper, I tell my father and mother I'm going out to play a game of kick the can with the guys. I get Dick and we go to get Eddie, who lives on the second floor of a house with a porch. He comes out in his pajamas and says his aunt, who he lives with, won't let him come out because he forgot to do something for her which she told him to do. Here is this thief can't come out because his aunt won't let him.
It's ridiculous and we should've quit right there, but Eddie throws down the key to the store and tells us to go do it without him. Now he has put Dick and me on our nerve. We chicken out and he'll never let us forget. That's how dumb Dick and me are.
We go down to the alley and Dick goes through the window that Eddie has opened just the way it was planned. I squat down in the dark alley with a hunting knife, which I don't know what the hell I expect to do with should anybody see me. Dick sticks his head out the window and tells me the key, which Eddie said would open the door, won't. He takes a hammer and screwdriver from Ernie Kepler's work bench and tries to tap the dried paint off the hinges so we can take the door off.
The Junkyard Dog (Jimmy Flannery Mysteries Book 1) Page 6
