The Devil's Redhead (10 page)

The girl was short, thick-limbed and plain, a rowdy brunette with gray eyes and a nose too small for her face. Her skin was so densely freckled it resembled a burn. Shel sometimes imagined the girl's lungs, her heart, her bones all measled with vague red spots. She was playing solitaire with the radio on, sitting in the breakfast nook, her stockings lying in a filmy tangle beside her shoes.

“I was looking for Frank,” Shel said.

“I gathered from the noise.”

“You seen him?”

“Nope.”

“How long you been here?”

Rowena groaned. “Oh, please.”

The radio blared old soul tunes, something Rowena didn't dare listen to if Roy was around.

“Mind if I sit down?” Shel asked.

“You want the truth?”

Roy had met Rowena in a local bar, hustling truckers for drinks. He'd wooed her with drugs and a place to live, then put her up with Frank and Shel. Someone to watch the watchers. When he realized she had a child, a vaguely mulatto boy named Duval, he lost interest, except for the income she provided, which he called rent.

Roy put her back to work at a marginally better locale, a hotel lounge near the commuter airport in Concord. He drove her there three nights a week and sat there watching as she did her thing, asking the suits to dance, accepting their drinks, laughing at their jokes, touching them. Roy set the number of work nights at three, figuring any more than that meant she liked it too much; any less, she liked it too little.

Shel said, “Roy running late?”

“Don't start with me.”

“I was just asking.”

“No one ever just asks. Least of all you.”

She was smoking menthols, and one jutted from the crook of her mouth as she shuffled her discards.

Shel tried again. “What I mean is, it's getting late. I wondered if Roy had maybe called things off for tonight.” Snapping the cards, Rowena played the jack of clubs on the queen of diamonds. “If that's so,” Shel went on, “I mean, if you're staying in, well, I've got a favor.”

“Not a chance,” Rowena said.

“Just hear me out.”

“I just did.”

“Look, I can't just wait here, I've got to track down Frank. If he comes back while I'm gone, I need him to stay put.”

Rowena looked up. Her eyes were dull with annoyance. “Please,” she said, “don't tell me your problems.”

She returned her attention to the cards, scratching her freckled arm. Shel sighed and got up to go. A haze darkened the edges of the room. She felt tired. Depressed.

“Come on,” she said, trying one last time. “Be civilized.”

“I am civilized,” Rowena replied. She ran her thumbnail down the edge of the cards. The nail polish had been chewed away. “I'm the most civilized person you'll ever meet.”

It was well after seven before Abatangelo made it back to North Beach and entered La Dolce di Venezia. Venturing through the dining room, he found Eddy alone in a booth at the rear, nursing a bottle of Barbaresco. His bread knife was slathered with butter, his place setting flecked with crumbs. A small, white-frosted cake rested on the table, bearing the inscription
DANNY
—
WELCOME HOME
written in red glaze and surrounded by sugar florets.

Looking up as Abatangelo approached, Eddy greeted him by licking his teeth and gesturing for him to sit. For all his impatience, a certain liveliness inhabited the eyes.

“I was out at the Montara Lighthouse,” Abatangelo explained, taking a seat. “Got caught in a mess coming back.”

Eddy raised a hand as though to say, No apologies. He poured them each a glass of wine, lifted his, and said, “Home.” Abatangelo responded in kind. They drank.

All things considered, Abatangelo thought, time had been kind to Eddy. He was bald on top, graying along the sides. It suited him, actually. He was still large, thick-legged and meaty, with the back of a wrestler and a shameless paunch.

“Got yourself some serious love handles there, Eddy.”

“Fuck love handles. I got love luggage.”

Eddy had taken over his father's body shop out in the avenues, the elder Igo's retirement coinciding with Eddy's release from Lompoc. Promises of walking the straight and narrow attended the change of hands. Since his parole, Eddy had honored those promises. He married a local girl named Polly Neal. He bought a run-down Victorian in the Western Addition and was trying to return it to something resembling its original state.

In his letters to Abatangelo, Eddy had admitted that, with chosen friends, he did at times reminisce. He did so heartily, without remorse. “Let's sing, me lads, about the days we was scurvy buccaneers,” he'd sally. He feared no backslides. He felt no temptation to recapture the wild and fugitive past. He was content, he said. He looked content.

Refilling his wineglass, Eddy asked, “How'd Montara feel?”

Abatangelo puffed his cheeks. “I'm all over the map,” he confided.

Eddy nodded. “First six months I was out, I went from scared shitless to ready for anything in the blink of an eye. Had more mindless impulses than a monkey.”

Abatangelo grinned. “Oh yeah, like what, for instance?”

“Like never mind, for instance. What you wanna eat?” Eddy brushed the crumbs off his menu and opened it, squinting to read in the soft light. “I hear they do a mean fish here.”

Abatangelo let his menu sit. “I'm gonna have spaghetti with sausage.”

Eddy, regarding him with incredulity, whispered, “You don't have to worry about how much it costs.”

“Not the issue,” Abatangelo replied.

The waiter appeared. He was short and slight with exquisite good looks, carrying himself on the balls of his feet. A languor in the eyes suggested lukewarm morals. Abatangelo thought of his father.

“Gentlemen,” the waiter announced, enunciating the word as though to flaunt his accent. “I am Massimo. A fabulous evening, no?”

Abatangelo half-expected him to click his heels. “Massimo,” he said. “
Paesano, come stai
?”

Almost imperceptibly, the waiter stiffened. An ugly grin materialized.
“M'arrangio
,” he replied, bowing a little at the waist.
“Paesano.
”

Abatangelo couldn't help but smile.
M'arrangio
meant, “I'm getting by,” but it had an additional connotation of “I'm watching the angles.” Pops to a T, he thought.

Eddy ordered grilled salmon and a side of linguini with clams. Abatangelo ordered spaghetti marinara with a side order of fennel sausage grilled with peppers. As the waiter jotted these things down, Abatangelo asked, “Play the ponies, Massimo?”

Massimo offered a mordant smile and made a gesture as though to say he did not understand.

“The ponies, Massimo. Used to be you'd go to Philly the Wag over at Portofino's, but I hear he's dead. Joey Twitch Costanza, he's long gone. Who makes book in the neighborhood now? You're the man who can tell me. I can feel it.”

“Danny,” Eddy murmured. “Throttle back.”

Abatangelo returned his glance to the menu. “As for wine,” he said, “we've just about killed this pup. Bring another Barbaresco for me and a nice Malvasia Bianca for my friend, given he favors fish.
Molte grazie. Arrivederla.
”

Massimo said nothing as he collected the menus. Once he was out of earshot, Eddy hissed,
“Paesano …
what the fuck …?”

Abatangelo tasted his wine. “I know his kind,” he said.

“They had waiters at Safford?”

“Our little man Massimo,” Abatangelo explained, “bears more than a passing resemblance to my old man.”

Eddy sat back and drummed his fingers on the table. “What's going on, guy?”

Abatangelo stewed for a moment. “Sorry,” he said. “I got hit in the face at Dominic's with ancient history. Nina Napolitano called me ‘Vince's boy.'”

“Biologically speaking—”

“Fuck biology. I just spent ten years in lofty self-examination, all expenses paid. I know what I know and what I know is, I ain't Vince Abatangelo's boy in any way that means anything.”

His delivery was over the top, he sensed it himself. Eddy leaned forward and put his hand on Abatangelo's wrist. “Let it go.”

Abatangelo shrugged apologetically. “You're right.” He leaned back into his seat and made a come-forth gesture with his hand. “So, regale me. The gang. How are they?”

Eddy obliged with a brief rundown. Steve Cadaret from all reports remained free in Southeast Asia, doing the bohemian fugitive bit. Mickey Bensusan had found God in Palm Desert courtesy of an Aryan beauty named Malika. Joey Bassinger died of a heart attack freebasing in a motel room near Yosemite, of all places. Jimmy Byrne, the Company's skipper, who'd been apprehended at sea the same night the arrests on the beach went down, remained in prison, where, unless the political winds turned, he would grow old and die.

“Poor Cap,” Abatangelo offered.

“You did what you could do,” Eddy said.

“Maybe. Any event, you left out Shel.”

Eddy removed an envelope from his coat pocket and passed it across the table. “I'm not sure I approve of this, incidentally.”

The envelope contained a printout on coarse gray paper. The text bore the heading
LACHELLE MAUREEN BEAUDRY, AKA SHEL BEAUDRY
, and listed several recent addresses.

Abatangelo regarded it like a seven-year-old with a valentine. “Any trouble getting this?”

“Seventy-five bucks,” Eddy said. “If that's trouble.”

“I'll pay.”

“Whatever,” Eddy said. “Truth is, this wasn't any trouble for me, but it was to the guy who got it for me. Seems he had to rely on vehicle registrations to get those addresses.”

“That's a problem?”

“You're not supposed to get vehicle registration information except for service of process. You lie, you surrender a fifty-thousand-dollar bond. But Shel, she's got no property in her name. Doesn't have any credit to speak of, and her last job ended over a year ago. So the last resort was DMV. Bingo. Turns out she has her name on a truck. To cover his butt, my guy filed a phony small claims action with a due diligence affidavit saying he tried to serve her but couldn't. He'll file a Request for Dismissal in a couple weeks. That should cover it.”

“If it doesn't,” Abatangelo said, “I'm good for the hassle.”

Eddy laughed. “Oh yeah? You got fifty grand lying around? Forget about it. Let trouble come looking for you. Meanwhile, as long as we're playing show-and-tell, hand over the letter you got. I want to read this thing for myself.”

Abatangelo thought it over, then obliged, feeling guilty for the trouble he may have caused. Eddy tore Shel's letter out of the envelope and read it as though looking for his own name. After a moment, with a puzzled expression, he glanced up from the page and said, “Living out in B.F.E.? That's—?”

“Bum Fuck Egypt,” Abatangelo replied.

“Oh, right, right.”

Their salads arrived with a fresh basket of bread and the two bottles of wine. Massimo did not bring them. In his stead he sent a stocky busman with a tooth missing. His bow tie was crooked and his shirt had elbow stains.

“From now, you want, you say Oscar, anything,” the man announced.

Oscar popped both corks and disappeared. Eddy said, “Next time, we eat Chinese, just to spare you these little flashbacks, okay?”

He returned to Shel's letter, finishing it shortly and folding it back into its envelope. He passed it back across the table and attacked his salad. Abatangelo continued studying the addresses. With a little concentration, you could make out which one was most recent. He'd head out as soon as dinner was over, use Dominic's car, get a map of the area once he was out there.

To Eddy, he said, “So what did you think? Of her letter, I mean.”

“Read between the lines,” Eddy said with a shrug. “Read deep. Then read a little deeper.”

“That bad?”

“Bad as that,” Eddy said through his food. “Worse, maybe. You know how she is.”

“I did once.”

“Now, now. Don't pity yourself. It's unlucky.”

“You saw her,” Abatangelo said.

“That I did,” Eddy confirmed.

Eddy had bumped into Shel by accident six months earlier in Antioch. His brother-in-law had a repair shop on the Delta Highway. Eddy went out to help him on weekends. While buying himself a hero in Safeway, he spotted Shel at the checkout. It'd been great for a minute or two, then increasingly edgy and odd. They talked at most ten minutes.

“She really seem that bad?” Abatangelo asked.

Eddy groaned. “You're like a little kid, know that? We've been through this. She says it herself in the letter. She's attached. To a loser.”

“Loser how?”

“Something about the way she was talking, I dunno, it just had crank written all over it. It's very big among the white folk out that way.”