Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? (25 page)

Connor has just cut through a bit of the needle lace when Céline says, “Did you just hear a car door?”

Connor pauses, catching the anxiety in her voice. “Opening or closing?”

“Both.”

Connor cuts faster, but the needle lace bunches. He listens again but hears nothing.

The doorbell rings. In his surprise Connor jabs Céline's right breast with the scissors. She screams. This is followed by someone pounding.

“Céline!” shouts a man's voice.

“It's Chucky,” whispers Céline.

Connor has a sudden realization. “You called him, didn't you?” He grips a handful of white fabric so Céline can't pull away. He's unaware of doing this.

“I had to. He'd hurt me if I didn't. He told me to keep you here.” Céline says this all in a rush.

The scissors have nearly reached the top of the needle lace. Only a few snips left. Connor still holds the nightgown. He notices a speck of blood from where he'd stuck her with the scissors. At last he lets go. He drops the scissors to the rug and readjusts his pants. Céline stumbles back, rubbing her snipped breast.

More hammering: the door shakes in its frame and cracks.

“Look, you're a nice boy,” says Céline, “and you have a nice face. It'd be a pity to have Chucky destroy it. He wants to turn it to hamburger.”

Perhaps Connor had thought that Chucky might wait patiently on the sofa until he, Connor, had finished his business. We'll never know. Connor heads for the back door, picking up his coat from the beige sofa.

Turning, he says, “Chucky calls me Zeco, doesn't he?”

Céline nods. “Use the bedroom window,” she whispers. “He'll have one of his thugs at the back door.”

Connor veers toward the bedroom. As he reaches the window, he hears Céline shout, “All right, I'm coming! Give it a break, already!”

Pushing out the screen, Connor scrambles over the sill and hurries into the night. The sky is clear, but there's no moon. The stars are bright and full of questions.

I
n Connor's dream a pileated woodpecker hammers on his forehead. In real time it's the knuckle of Didi Lobato's right index finger. Over the space of a second, Connor shifts back and forth between dream and reality, attempting to preserve the dream from the greater annoyance that reality offers. In this he fails.

“What the fuck happened to the car?” shouts Didi.

Connor's eyes remain shut. He has a mental image of the smashed windshield of the Mini-Cooper and a large stone resting on the passenger seat. He'd found the damage after running from Céline's house to where he had parked the car on Glenwood Place. Then he'd hardly paused to brush the glass from the driver's seat as he started the engine and accelerated away at full speed with the wind beating against his face like the onset of repressed memory.

But since Connor didn't see anyone hurl the stone, he's able to say, “I've absolutely no idea. It was like that when I found it.”

Didi steps back from Connor's bed. “You're lying. You went to see that woman, Céline. You were told not to see her.”

“I wasn't there long.” Uttering the words, he knows it's an absurd excuse.

“A nanosecond would have been too long.” Didi is on the edge of berating his nephew. He wants to tell him he's “jeopardizing their endeavor” and “sabotaging the basic principles of Bounty, Inc.” Instead he says, “You've disappointed me. You lack the tugo spirit.”

Connor feels his stomach knot. He sits on the side of the bed wearing a white T-shirt and his undershorts. Eartha stands by the stove making coffee. Vaughn sits cross-legged on the floor with one of his yellow pads. His oversize sweatshirt makes him resemble a beanbag. They, too, look disappointed. Connor can't think of an excuse that has any bite to it. Yes, Céline had told him to come over right away, but where were his priorities?

“Did you at least fuck her?” asks Didi sarcastically.

Connor shakes his head. “She gave me some manicure scissors and told me to cut off her nightgown from bottom to top. It's harder than you might think.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Eartha, “I've done that. Gets boring after a while. Manicure scissors are no good. You need fingernail scissors—they got a bigger blade.”

Vaughn's normally blank face refashions itself into a squeezed, sympathetic expression. “You're the victim of impecunious dreams.”

“You get all the way to the top?” asks Eartha, bringing Connor a cup of coffee.

Again Connor shakes his head. “Someone started hammering on the door. She said it was Chucky.”

“That, too,” says Eartha, “I've done that. It's part of the routine. The arrival of the stranger. You're sure it was Chucky and not FedEx?”

“A black GMC Denali was in the driveway. I'd parked the Mini-Cooper on the street a couple of houses away. I just ran.”

“Like an escape goat,” says Vaughn.

We might think that Connor is as full of shame as a sock is full of a foot, but his main concern is that Céline will learn from Chucky that he's the one who told Vasco about recognizing Sal Nicoletti, meaning that first action was the beginning of all else. Céline said she didn't know Vasco, but it didn't matter. Connor told
someone
, and two days afterward Sal was shot and a plastic rose was stuck into his forehead. And the reason Connor told Vasco was he didn't want his brother to think he was boring. How ridiculous! But eating away at Connor's feelings for Céline is his new awareness that he was looking for Sal's jewelry not for Céline but for Chucky. Céline was only Chucky's pawn.

“I'll get the windshield fixed this morning,” says Connor, formulating another reason to return to New London.

Didi pours himself a cup of coffee. “We're done here. It's over. Vasco called to warn me about Chucky. He wants us out of here. We'll empty the New London mailbox and leave. I'd hoped to stay another two weeks. This is your fault, Connor.”

Eartha protests. “You're the one who called Angelina Rossi about Orphans from Outer Space,” she reminds Didi. “And she must have told the cops about Connor. What will you do about that?”

Didi sips his coffee and looks out at the ocean. “I have a plan,” he says.

—

C
onnor's swimming goggles have blue lenses, which give a little vigor to the late-winter landscape. He bought them in Brewster at a sporting-goods store, and as he drove out of town, the startled looks he got from the drivers of oncoming cars and pickups led to abrupt swerves—but luckily no smash-ups. As it turned out, he was unable to replace the windshield of the Mini-Cooper in Brewster unless he could wait until Monday, which wasn't possible. His options, as he learned through some phone calls, were to drive north to Warwick or south to New London, where he was going in any case. The goggles protect his eyes from the blasts of cold air that buffet him through the empty space where the windshield used to be. He also wears a blue ski cap, a blue windbreaker, and a green-and-yellow scarf wrapped three times around his head. The temperature outside the car is in the low fifties; inside the car in the area around Connor's nose, the windchill is below freezing.

Connor heads south on Interstate 95. The heater is on full blast but has little effect on his face though he keeps his speed at a modest forty-five. Twice he stops to thaw out his nose. His punishment's only virtue is that he feels he deserves it. He'd lied to Didi and ruined the current prospects of Bounty, Inc. He'd told his brother about Sal, which most likely led to his murder. He'd played the fool with Céline and, worse, might play the fool again if the chance arose. So he suffers from the onslaught of wind and takes pleasure in his suffering.

It's nine-thirty when he reaches the auto-glass shop on Broad Street in New London and almost ten-thirty by the time the windshield is replaced. He pays with one of Didi's credit cards. Possibly it's bogus. Then he drives back across town to Céline's house, telling himself that he's curious, though he remains vague about the specifics. It's simply free-floating curiosity. He keeps the car heater roaring full blast until he begins to sweat. It's like a belated blessing.

When he turns onto Glenwood Place, Connor receives a shock. A large white truck is backed into the driveway, and on its side are the words
MURPHY'S RENTALS
, along with a New London address and phone number. Two men in gray overalls carry a beige couch from the house to the truck. Two more men edge past them back into the house.

Connor pulls to the curb and jumps from the car. His first impulse is to tell the men to stop what they're doing. They've no business taking away Céline's furniture. They have to put it back. He won't do this, of course; it's just an impulse. But he runs to one of the men and asks what's happening.

“It's all going back to the warehouse,” says the man, pushing the couch into the back of the truck. He's tall, muscular, and no-nonsense. “That's where it goes when folks are done with it.”

“Where's the woman who lived here?”

“She took off this morning with two suitcases. Cab picked her up.”

Connor hurries to the house and reaches the door as two more men emerge with a beige easy chair, turning it first one way and then another so they won't knock its wooden legs against the doorframe. Connor waits and then runs inside.

Half the furniture is already gone. The bedrooms are empty. Connor opens one of the closets, but the clothes are gone as well. He sniffs. He detects a sweet smell that he decides must be Céline's perfume. His knees wobble with desire. But the sweet smell is a Chanel cologne for men called Égoïste Platinum: Sal Nicoletti's favorite.

In the kitchen two women in gray overalls pack the dishes and silverware. The refrigerator is already empty.

“We'll be done in another half hour,” says one woman. “You movin' in?”

Why not?
thinks Connor. He could rent the house and rent the bed in which Céline had slept. He could eat off her dishes and use her silverware. But Connor's romanticism has its limits.

“I'm just looking,” he says.

“It's a rush job, so we figured someone wanted it right away.” The woman puts her hands on her hips, stretches backward, and grunts.

Connor spends twenty minutes searching the house. Maybe he's looking for one of Céline's intimate articles of clothing or one of her black high-heeled shoes. He imagines finding a letter addressed to him personally, in which she apologizes for the previous evening and includes a phone number where she may be reached. She'll wait for his call. These thoughts zip past like flies and are gone before he can swat them away. They embarrass him.
Cut it out!
he tells himself. It's just as well she's gone. He's not infatuated; he was hypnotized. It's like being drugged. After all, her real name was Shirley. The creature known as Céline was a phantasm. In real life, as Eartha had once told him, Céline was someone who scratched and farted. She had no conversation. She only gave commands.

Maybe this is exaggeration. Maybe back in Detroit, Céline is a Cub Scout mom. She was offered serious money to move to New London to pretend to be a creep's wife, and jumped at the chance. Connor knows nothing about her, and he must stop thinking about her. Even Eartha—or Beatriz, whatever her name is—has greater actuality, despite a plastic surgeon's nips, tucks, and additions. At least she speaks truthfully to Connor, even if she doesn't speak truthfully to anyone on the phone.

Connor pauses in the empty living room and considers Linda, the young lady who works at the travel agency. Yes, yes, we see where these thoughts are going as she begins to blossom in his mind. If Didi were here, he'd urge Connor to slow down. It's unlikely that Linda is a secret serial killer, Didi might say, but you know nothing about her. Nearly everyone is on his or her best behavior when we first meet. It's only later that the rough spots emerge: the bad habits, insecurities, and secret angers. But Connor's alone at the moment and able to avoid Didi's cautionary messages. In this he's fortunate. It's sufficient that his thoughts about Linda are strong enough to nudge Céline from the forefront of his brain. He won't forget about her—it's too soon for that—but she's moved back a few steps. Is Connor ridiculous? Surely he's no more ridiculous than most young men with romantic natures and healthy libidos. Indeed, there are days when Connor doesn't think of sex more than two dozen times, days when he's efficient and hardworking and his intelligence is able to crawl out from underneath his fantasy life and show its muscle.

The movers are nearly finished. Two men carefully take down the seascape from the living room wall. In a day or so, it will grace the wall of another rental. Connor hears a breaking noise from outside that he can't identify. A man shouts, “Hey you, cut it out!”

Running to the window, Connor sees someone bashing the new windshield of the Mini-Cooper with a golf club. Idling behind the Mini-Cooper is the black Denali.

By the time Connor gets outside, the man has completed his work. The windshield is in a thousand-plus pieces. “I told him to stop,” says one of the moving men. “Should I call the cops?”

Connor doesn't respond. The guy with the golf club gets back into the Denali. Without thinking, Connor runs toward him. Who knows what he hopes to do? Among his confusing thoughts, not one has yet crawled its way to the top.

The moving man calls to him. “I wouldn't do that if I were you!”

A rear window of the Denali opens, and Chucky looks out. His smile is as friendly as a spider bite. He sticks out his hand and makes a peace sign. Then, with the same two fingers, he taps his throat, as if to say,
You're a dead man.
Connor comes to a halt.

—

F
idget lies stretched out in a tub of tepid water with his bony knees poking above the surface like twin Ararats. He thinks it's time to give the hot-water tap another twist to increase the temperature a few degrees, but if he leans forward, he'll disturb the gold necklaces arranged becomingly on his chest. Fidget's chest is more sunken than thin, and the necklaces nicely fill the declivity. So he's torn, but if he does nothing, he'll grow cold. He remains still for another minute to further admire the golden twinkling, as he delights in the smallness of his present dilemma. He has gold, vodka, and food. What more can the world offer?

This is when Fidget hears the opening of the garage door, followed quickly by the sound of a motorcycle being revved up. The 1690-cc air-cooled twin-cam 103 engine and Tommy Gun 2-1-2 exhaust of the Fat Bob would be noisy even in Times Square, but within the garage they're thunderous. Terrified birds fly up from the bare branches. The surface of Fidget's bathwater ripples.

At other times Fidget might feel anxiety about possible intrusions, but he's inside a fortress. The doors and downstairs windows are covered with plywood, and no one can enter. Eventually he might worry about how to get out, but not today. The outside world is not his concern.

If Fidget cared to disturb his comfort and look from the window, he'd see a black Fat Bob hurtle out the driveway and accelerate down the street. But he sees nothing. His attention is focused on sliding forward as slowly as possible so he can turn on the hot-water tap and solve his only significant problem: tepid water. As his knees disappear, his nugget rings, gold bracelet, and gold Rolex break the surface and sparkle a sentimental greeting. He admires them fondly as he adjusts the tap and the water heats up. When a nearly unbearable warmth is reached, he closes the tap, leans back, and readjusts the gold chains across his chest. The rings, bracelet, and Rolex disappear as his knees rise like baby Alps, or were they Ararats? Fidget sighs.

An hour passes. Perhaps Fidget dreams—we have no information about this—but when he wakes, the water is again tepid. Such a nuisance. Slowly, he pushes himself upward to turn on the hot water. But over the sound of the splashing water, he perceives another noise. A car has pulled in to the driveway. Should he investigate? He thinks not. Still, he hears voices: a conversation that becomes audible as two men walk toward the rear of the house.