CHAPTER 21

Well, Hello There

MARIA CHETTA fell asleep in the bathtub. It wasn’t the first time. She dreamed: beach, garden, rose petals, a big white bed, gauzy curtains. Then it changed—a loud noise, a swirl of colors, a horrible car crash; five, maybe six cars. She was driving a truck, a big one. She looked down on a field of debris, huge tires rolling forward, crushing steel and smashing windshields, hubcaps, bumpers and twisted doors with their locks still depressed. There wasn’t any blood just a shoeless leg in khakis on her left, half a man on her right. The man with one cheek pressed to the ground like he was listening for earthworms, or approaching horses. Long gray hair flowed over his collar, the wind tickling it over a cheek that couldn’t feel on an armless man who couldn’t brush it away.

Maria woke with a start, splashing bath water over the side of the tub, unsure for a moment where she was. The water had cooled, a chill from the dream seeped into the lavender bath. She opened the drain and felt the water swirl past her, gurgling and chugging down the hotel pipes. By the time she’d wrapped herself in the white terry robe and padded over to the mini bar, the dream was just a bad taste in the back of her throat, easily disguised by the Glenlivet she poured over ice and drank in three swallows. 

She stood by the window overlooking the Square, imagining James King saying, “You’re just a dumb bitch who won’t amount to nothing. I want you out of here, you and your fat Mama, always crying all the time. You got three days, hear me? And I don’t want to see you around the store no more, either.”

King was serious this time. He could even be in love with this one. Maria had to do something. She’d given up too much of herself to lose now, so she asked Lou for the gun. And called Chancy. No one had figured it out. Except Deluca. He was smart even back then. Determined. 

Maria thought she’d done them a favor; the way she saw it, she’d done the whole damn city a favor, ridding them of a horrible man determined to ruin the lives of their children with drugs, bring their neighborhoods down, sap the strength of their community. But Deluca and the others, they missed the money. 

Maria knew Banning was right. Twenty-four years is a long time to keep a secret. But that was just one of the reasons she was here. 

Paris watched the waiter bend over the low table and place her martini precisely in the center of the napkin. She slipped him a few bills. “Thank you.” 

“Will there be anything else, Miss Kendrick?”

Paris ran her eyes over the young blond. “Maybe later. I have your number.” She re-crossed her long legs, checked her watch and wondered how many sets of Kegels she could get through before her guest arrived.

Maria sipped her second scotch while perched on the window seat. She watched a fresh-faced brunette on the Square below. The girl held a red sign of protest or cheer, something about RENT or PETA. Maria wasn’t sure. She was trying to read the small print when someone knocked. 

“It’s open.” Maria didn’t bother to turn around, absorbed in the protester’s odd actions. She heard the door open and close. On the sidewalk below, the girl had wheeled a covered cage out of the shadows into the light of the street lamp. She whipped the red cover away to reveal a naked man squeezed into the tiny space. 

Still staring, Maria said, “Everything’s on the table, Len. I want to be there when you confront him.” 

People on the street gathered around the girl and the caged man. 

“I want to see his face. I want him to know it was me who did this to him.” 

Someone handed the girl a megaphone, Maria could hear a few words, “illegal, unfair, inhumane.”

“But more than that, I want—” 

Maria turned around and saw that it wasn’t Len Banning and his associate she’d been talking to, it wasn’t him bent over the loaded gun in the baggie and the piles of tapes. She barely spoke the word, “over.”

Deluca smiled. “Hello, Maria.”

Standing behind him, Paris reached into her jacket pocket. She fiddled with something then stepped back as Maria stormed across the room. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

White Shoes had heard enough. No matter what the kid said, JR had done, seen or heard something better. “All right. Enough. Christ, the two of you are like my Aunt Rose and Uncle Vinnie. What the fuck are you doing back there, anyway?”

JR and Reilly had been messing around in the back of the van for the last half hour. The kid was funny, sure, but he couldn’t sit still for a goddamn minute, and it was driving White Shoes nuts. He figured he’d pick up a few beers on the next stop, maybe get the kid to mellow out. He hoped Howdy Doody didn’t have any more coke on him, and he really hoped he wasn’t joking when he said he could rig a pipe bomb.

The gas station had certainly seen better days. and the tinny music blaring from the blown speakers of the shithole bar next door assured White Shoes they’d left the city behind. Someone once said, Pennsylvania was Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. White Shoes slid down from the van seat, stretched and said to no one in particular, “Welcome to Alabama.”

He opened the rear doors of the van and let JR and Reilly out. 

“Fill it up. I gotta use the can.”

JR looked at Reilly, motioned to the pump. Smiling, Reilly shrugged and sat down on the van’s rear bumper.

JR cursed under his breath, then went round to work the pump. He was standing there a few minutes later, nozzle in hand, when White Shoes came back. 

“Where’s Howdy Doody?” he asked, looking around, fiddling with his fly. 

“Back there.” JR jerked his thumb to the rear of the van.

White Shoes said, “Did you pay?”

“No.”

“What do you mean? You just been standing here all this time?”

“Hey, the fucking thing’s broke. I have to hold it like this, and if I push it all the way, it cuts off, it’s delicate.”

“It’s delicate? What the fuck? Give it to me. Now, go pay the guy. Ke-rist!”

JR shuffled off, shaking his head.

White Shoes grabbed the nozzle, squeezed. The pump cut off, and when he squeezed again, a spray of gasoline covered his hand and splattered his shoes.

JR laughed as he walked toward the store. “I told you,” he said.

The kid behind the counter had rigged the store’s security monitor to a game player and was in the middle of a battle with three tough looking Ninjas, thumbs pounding furiously on the controller. 

He didn’t look up. “Whatcha got, Dude?”

“Twenty in gas, some chips and candy.” 

The kid swapped out his Warrior for a Japanese fighting girl in a slinky red dress. He glanced at the food on the counter then back to his game. “Twenty-seven fifty. You need change?”

JR pulled some bills from his wallet and a few coins from his pocket, slapped the money on the counter. He spoke to the kid’s back. “Nah, I’m good.” 

The boy’s fighting girl took on a giant panda. The kid jumped up, jerking his arms and legs as if the battle were real. He never saw JR swipe the six-pack and magazines on his way out. JR dumped his take into the van through the window. White Shoes rubbed furiously at a damp spot on his Bucs. 

“You all right there, Shoes?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get the kid and let’s go.” 

JR walked to the back of the van. Reilly was gone. He checked inside. No kid. He closed the rear doors and looked toward the restrooms.

“Hey, White Shoes?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you say he was, uh, in the toilet?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

White Shoes threw down the paper towel and came around to the back of the van. 

“He ain’t here.”

“I can see that. Where is he?”

JR shrugged. Across the gravel lot, someone had opened a window in the bar, and now it was even easier to hear Creedence singing about a bad moon on the rise.

“Are you shittin’ me? C’mon.”

The moment they opened the door they knew they were fucked. 

It wasn’t the twinkling pink Christmas lights around the bar or even the rows of collectible Barbies neatly displayed on the back wall. It was the way the song ended abruptly when they stepped over the threshold. The way three bushy blond heads swiveled round from their places at the bar.

“Well, girls,” The bigger blonde said. “This must be our day.” She slid from the bar stool, heavy boots clomped on the wooden floor, and spoke around the cigarette in her mouth, swaying a bit. 

She pointed at White Shoes. “One,” then to JR, “two,” then reached between her pals and produced Reilly, like a rabbit from a magician’s hat. “Three.”

The second blond popped up, tittering. “And look, there’s three of us. “One. Two—”

The third blond grabbed her by the hair, shoved her. “No shit, Shirley. Sit down.”

“What did you do that for, huh? And why’d you call me Shirley?”

“Have a drink.” The tough one said, shoving a glass in her direction.

The big blond approached the men and circled them with her hands on her hips like a farmer appraising his prize-winning bull. She licked her lips. “Good idea. Let’s all have a drink.”

JR started backing up, “Thanks ladies, but we really should be going.”

White Shoes put his hand on JR’s back. “We’d love a drink. Ain’t that right, buddy?” He pushed JR forward. “And then the three of us need to be hitting the road, ain’t that right?’ White Shoes stared at Reilly, who tipped his drink and saluted.

The big blonde stepped behind the bar and spoke to them over her shoulder. “Name’s Barbie. That’s Stacy.” The flaky chick on the nearest stool wiggled her fingers. “And Kenita.”

The tough broad jerked her head in their direction. “Ken.”

Barbie held two chilled shot glasses. “Vodka, boys?”

JR and White Shoes snapped the shots back, then set the glasses on the pastel pink bar.

JR looked around. “Nice place. It’s what you call...whimsical.” White Shoes rolled his eyes.

Stacy’s empty glass was re-filled by Barbie, sugar-rimmed and full of chilled vodka. Stacy took a sip then dipped her finger into the sugar and licked it off. She looked at JR. “Know which one’s my favorite?”

He shook his head slowly, unsure what she meant but hoping it had something to do with that sugar-tipped finger. She slid from the barstool and sashayed across the room in a sexy dance to the music in her head. Stacy looked like a life-sized version of the dolls on the wall. She selected a Barbie on the lowest shelf then hid it behind her back and returned to the bar. 

“Wanna see?”

JR swallowed. Hell yeah. 

“It’s Malibu Barbie.” She held the doll out to JR. “Feel her hair.” He petted the fake hair. 

“And look.” Stacy lifted the doll’s skirt. When JR wasn’t sure what he was seeing, she pulled at the velcro straps and revealed Malibu Barbie’s bra and crotch-less panties. Not exactly the kind of outfit you’d find on the toy store shelf.

“Now, that’s my kinda doll.” 

Reilly said, “One more for my friends.” 

Barbie filled the men’s glasses, leaned way over when she gave the drink to White Shoes. “I love a man in Bucs, buck-naked.” She winked, held up her glass to clink his. They downed the shot, eyes locked.

Reilly couldn’t believe this. Here he was out in the boonies with a couple of mobsters, both of them looking for the same guy, for what he figured were very different reasons. 

He’d lucked out, sneaking in here to use the phone while the bozos were busy. Sailor hadn’t believed him at first, then Ken got on the phone and there weren’t any more questions, except, “How long can you stall them?’ 

The ladies were pretty sweet, once you got past the, I’ve-been-hurt-by-my-asshole-of-a-husband-and-the-world-in-general-so-don’t-fuck-with-me facade. Yeah, after that, they were really pretty cool. 

So when he told them that these guys had taken him on a trip he hadn’t packed for, if you get my meaning. they understood completely and told him not to worry. They could handle these city boys. 

Reilly had to admit he sort of liked the show they were putting on, and from the way JR was dancing with Stacy, he was enjoying it, too. It was the other guy, White Shoes, who worried him. Not the footwear so much, but what he had strapped to the ankle above the Bucs. And the guy had no patience. Bad combination. 

But Reilly figured you have to work with what you got and these are the cards he was dealt. He was just hoping that Sailor had a few deuces up her sleeve. He threw back his shot of water and slurred, “Who’s going to dance with me?

“Come on, Hi. We’re almost there.” 

Gina figured there was no use in telling him the truth. They were so far from almost there, it wasn’t funny. But she was hoping against all hope that somebody would drive down this forsaken road and save her from thinking about the alternatives. So she hitched up her grip on Berger and repeated, “Come on, Hi.” Like it was a prayer.