McBride got up, headed for the door.
“Nice suit, by the way,” said DeGatano.
McBride turned. “What?”
“Your suit. It’s nice. I mean I always went with that off the rack shit from Sears, navy blue every time, on account of I ripped the knees out of the pants or get some blood on anything, it was all mix and match. But what you got there, that’s nice.”
McBride shrugged. “Wife pick’s ‘em out. Brooks Brothers mostly. You’re gonna be a player, you gotta wear the uniform.”
“So I guess when you got off the street and joined the suits, you joined all the way.”
McBride stood there, looking at DeGatano.
“You’re still an asshole, Lou. You might be a fucked up old man wasting his last days chasing ghosts, but you haven’t lost a step in the asshole department.”
***
Tuesday. Visiting day for Gladys. Kid was in his Cub Scout uniform again, but Novak wasn’t having a good day. Still, he seemed to be kind of tracking the kid, always seemed to be facing him. But Novak’s eyes were vacant, his face slack.
DeGatano reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of cord maybe four feet long. He’d cut it off the blinds in his room the night before. Maintenance would be up his ass if they ever noticed, which they wouldn’t. When Novak turned his chair toward him, DeGatano tossed the cord into Novak’s lap. Novak didn’t seem to notice, just kept tracking the kid around the room.
The girl was playing checkers with Gladys. Hank wandered over, stood watching. The girl kept looking up at him, like she expected him to bite her or something.
“We’re playing checkers, Hank,” Gladys said.
“Playing peckers playing peckers playing peckers . . .”
DeGatano caught Novak’s hands moving out of the corner of his eye. He looked over. The cord lay across Novak’s lap, tied in a perfect sheepshank.
***
T-Bone sat in DeGatano’s recliner, had the Sox game on, giving DeGatano shit about the Cubs.
“It’s a spiritual discipline, kid,” DeGatano said. “You don’t get it.”
T-Bone was his grandson, Tony Jr. Called himself T-Bone, dressed in those baggy-ass hip-hop clothes, did pretty much anything to get a rise out of his old man. Kid was kind of an asshole too, so him and DeGatano, they hit it off. Mostly, the kid came by ‘cause he could sit in Lou’s room, watch a game without his Dad getting on his ass about anything. Also he could hit Lou up for some cash now and then, Lou usually coughing it up ‘cause it felt nice to have the kid around some. Fuckin’ kid even calling him Lou, DeGatano trying to imagine the beat down his old man would have given him if he ever went and called his grandpa by his first name.
“So, you got prom and stuff comin’ up?” DeGatano asked.
Kid gave one of his lame half-shrugs. “I dunno. Dad, he still thinks it’s like the 80s, you know? I mean these guys and me, we were gonna get a limo, all that shit, and I try to hit Dad up for a little cash, make that work, and he’s like ‘You don’t need a limo. You can borrow the Buick.’ And I’m supposed to what, pick up some chic in the damn Buick , everybody else in that stretch Hummer party wagon?”
“How much?”
“Hey, Lou, I didn’t ask for nothin’.”
“I’m offering. How much?”
“I dunno. Couple hundred?”
“I tell you what, you do me a favor, I’ll front you the two hundred.”
T-Bone looking a little suspicious now on account of Lou usually gave him a little shit about the money.
“What do I gotta do?”
“Just bring me some stuff I need from the house.” DeGatano had signed the house over to T-bone’s dad when he moved into this dump.
“What kind of stuff?”
“You know the attic? You go up that trap-door in the closet in that third bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s some old carpet remnants up there, off to the right. Under those, between a couple of the floor joists, there’s a metal lock box. Bring me the box, you get the two hundred. And don’t say nothin’ to your old man about it.”
***
“Jesus, Lou DeGatano. I would have bet dead by now.” Nancy Johnson hadn’t heard from DeGatano since he retired.
“And I’m a little shocked you’re still at the paper, all the layoffs and everything. I heard journalism was dead.”
“It’s dying. But what the hell, it’ll last until I retire, so what do I care.”
“So, you wanna buy me lunch?”
“We don’t buy people lunch any more Lou. I haven’t had an expense account since 1995.”
“You got a credit card though, right?”
“Yeah, but that would make it a date. At your age, I doubt you can make that worth my while.”
“It’s about the Hangman.”
A long pause on the other end. “You got kind of a rep on that, you know that, right?”
“And you still gotta sell papers.”
DeGatano heard a long exhale through the phone.
“OK, a cheap lunch. Where do you want to meet?”
“You’re gonna have to pick me up. I ain’t driving no more.”
“Pick you up where?”
“Sunnybrook.”
Another pause. “Ah geeze, really? Okay. Give me half an hour.”
“It’ll take me that long to walk to the door,” DeGatano said.
***
Johnson pulled up in a year-old Lexus, DeGatano waiting on the bench just inside the main door, the oxygen tank he needed for any kind of road trip strapped into its wheeled aluminum carrier, the clear tube looped around his ears, DeGatano snorting the O2 like it was coke.
Johnson walked up to the door. Her hair was full gray now, cut short. Hell, for all DeGatano knew it had been gray then, but she’d stopped dying it at any rate. Johnson had always been skinny, just a shade over five feet, and she was still thin, but it was trending toward that bony old-lady thin now, not that pixie look like she used to have. DeGatano had been a sucker for that pixie look. Big enough sucker that he and Johnson had had a little thing thirty-five years back, right around the tail end of his first marriage. But who was he to be thinking she looked older. She was walking across the parking lot on her own power, making good time, wasn’t towing any oxygen with her, either.
She opened the door, pulled up when she saw him on the bench.
“God, Lou. You sure you’re up to this?”
“I ain’t up to shit anymore, truth be told. Just pull the car up closer to the door, okay?”
She walked back to the Lexus, wheeled it right up to the doorway, Lou taking the time to shove himself up to his feet, walk out to the curb. Only half as far as it was from his day-room chair to the can, and he had the O2 on, so he wasn’t panting too bad when she stepped around and opened the door for him, helped him into the seat, got his oxygen rig between his legs so he wouldn’t drop dead on the way to lunch.
“Nice ride,” Lou said as they wheeled out of the lot out onto Lake Street. “You win the lottery or something?”
“Kind of,” she said. “Harrison? The publisher?”
“Yeah?”
“He and I got hitched back in ’97.”
“Thought I heard he died.”
“He did, in ’99.”
DeGatano quiet for a second. “Am I supposed to say congratulations or I’m sorry?”
Johnson barked out a short laugh. “You haven’t changed, Lou. I mean aside from you got real old. I dunno, both I guess. It wasn’t some sort of soul-match thing. His first wife died, he wasn’t good at being alone, we were comfortable together. Just how it played out.”
“Well, it’s still a nice ride. And you’re looking good.”
“Save the shit, Lou. I look about average for 65. You look like crap. Where do you want to eat?”
“I want a goddamn cheeseburger with bacon on it and onion rings and a fuckin’ beer. The Manor still open?” The Manor was a crappy bar across Lincoln from the big-ass cemetery down on the southeast side, had a wooden deck in the back where you could eat outside when it was nice. And today it was 75, sunny, little breeze. “I got a plot in the boneyard across the street. We can dine al fresco and eyeball my new digs.”
Johnson nodded. “It’s still open. You should feel right at home. Same dirt on the tables as last time you were there, probably.”
***
They got a table back in a corner of the deck, DeGatano blowing pretty good by the time they sat down, still catching his breath when some young guy in a black t-shirt came out to take their orders. Johnson ordered a turkey club and a glass of their best Pinot Grigio.
“Not sure what Pinot Grigio is, but I’m sure we don’t have it,” the kid said.
“It’s a white wine. You have white wine?”
“We got white, red and pink.”
“I’ll have a glass of your best white.”
“Only have one.”
“That should make it easy on you then, shouldn’t it?”
The kid nodded. “Okay,” still looking at her, “What would your father like?”
DeGatano, reached up, grabbed the kid’s forearm. “I ain’t her father . . .” pause for breath, “and I may not be able to kick your ass anymore . . .” pause for breath, “but talk like I ain’t here again and I’ll put a match to this oxygen tank and blow us both to hell.”
The kid pulled his arm away. “Sorry, man. Okay, so what would you like?”
“Bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, beer.”
The kid turned and looked at Johnson.
“I don’t need her permission kid,” DeGatano said
“Okay,” the kid said. “What kind of beer? On draft we have Miller, Miller Lite . . .”
“Your best yellow. Surprise me. Now beat it.”
The kid left for the kitchen.
“Back in the day, all they hired for waitresses here was hot chicks. I was kinda looking forward to that,” DeGatano said.
“Not getting much action down at Sunnybrook?”
DeGatano shook his head. “Got one looker on staff. I peek down her shirt during my sponge baths and think bad thoughts. About all I can do. Pecker’s not good for much anymore besides taking a leak, and it ain’t much good for that.”
***
DeGatano got through maybe three bites of the burger, a couple onion rings and half the beer. He felt bloated, light headed, and a little sick. Johnson finished her sandwich, took another pull on her second glass of wine.
“Sad fucking thing,” DeGatano said. “Out with some elf-sized chick and she’s out eating me.”
“Out drinking you, too.” She finished the wine, wiggled her glass at the waiter for a refill. “So, the Hangman?”
DeGatano ran through what he had, the new guy, the Cub Scout, the knot.
“Kinda thin, Lou,” she said.
“I know. I’m not saying name the guy, I’m just saying dig a little. Service records would be nice. It’s always gnawed at me, the guy just stopping like that. Those sick fucks don’t just quit. Back in ’71, ‘72, I ran everybody that got busted anywhere near here for six months after that last killing. We always figured the guy ended up in the joint on something else. But now I got this Novak, and he can tie a sheepshank, and Cub Scouts push his happy button. And I know he’s ex-military ‘cause he’s in Sunnybrook on the VA’s dime. Could be he got drafted up, and that’s why he blew town.”
“Seems like maybe you should be calling McBride or somebody instead of me.”
Lou looked across the street at the cemetery, picked up the mug, thinking about another sip of the beer, then set it down. Wasn’t gonna help anything.
“I did.”
“And?”
“And he told me I was a sorry old fuck chasing ghosts. I’m down to the wire, Johnson, I know that. I don’t want to leave this world and leave that sick fuck in it, not if I got a chance.”
“You’re not talking about some kind of vigilante bullshit here, are you Lou?”
He shook his head. “Just need enough to make McBride take it seriously.”
“Not much in this for me, not if it doesn’t pan out,” Johnson said.
“It’s May now, Johnson. About a month, it’s gonna be forty years exactly since the first kid. You can do some kind of Hangman retrospective, city relives its summer of fear thing.”
She shrugged, raised her eyebrows a little. “OK, yeah. I can sell that. If I can promise an interview from the lead detective on the case.”
“Getting your pound of flesh, Johnson?”
“You gotta work off you lunch, big boy, and with your pecker out of service and all . . . ”
“Fine. I flap my gums, you run Novak for me.”
***
Back at Sunnybrook, DeGatano sat on his bed, gut rumbling. Had to take a dump, and it wasn’t gonna wait. His dumps these days, it wasn’t like his piss trouble. He didn’t get his ass to the can in a hurry, he’d have a slurry of shit running down his legs. Fucking cheeseburger, barely put a dent in the thing, couldn’t even finish one beer. Sorry goddamn state of affairs.
He spent a good ten minutes on the can. Nice thing at least about a decent dump, usually he squeezed a little piss out with it, maybe he go an hour or two without his bladder playing the will-she-or-won’t-she game with him. Thought about heading down to the day room, but after his lunch trip, he was tired as hell. Decided to lie down, see if he could take a nap.
Knock on the door.
“Yeah?”
“Hey Lou, it’s T-Bone. Got your box.”
DeGatano hoisted himself out of bed, opened the door, let the kid in. Kid handed him the lock box.
“Kinda heavy,” the kid said.
“So?”
“So nothing, just saying.”
DeGatano put the box on top of his dresser, opened the drawer where he kept his cash, counted out $200 for the kid.
“Thanks, Lou,” the kid said. “Listen, I’d hang, visit for a bit, but I gotta run.”
“It’s okay. I was just gonna take a nap anyway.”
The kid left. DeGatano locked the door, sat down on the recliner, picked up the box, worked the combination and opened the lid. He lifted out a wadded-up old kitchen towel, set it in his lap and unfolded it. The Model 36 Smith & Wesson looked good. He thumbed the release lever and flipped the cylinder out, eyeballed the chambers. Lockbox had a rubber gasket, good seal, so everything still looked clean. He’d hid his piece in the attic before he moved into Sunnybrook. Couldn’t have a weapon here, and if his son had known there was a gun in the house, he would have got rid of it. Gun had been locked in the attic coming up on six years now, though, some pretty good temperature swings up there, so DeGatano closed the cylinder again, dry fired a few times, feeling the action, watching it, listening to it, making sure nothing had got out of joint. Everything worked.