Jennifer says, “I take it you went through an expensive divorce.”
“Two of them, darling.”
Perhaps that explains his animosity; perhaps not.
Graeme drinks from the bottle. “I think of alimony like buying gas for a junked car. I’d like it a lot if once in a while maybe she’d pay for
Marian says, “He’s in a mood, as you can tell. He had to get up early to cover an unpleasant story. Somebody had the indecency to get murdered at five o’clock in the morning.”
A moment’s alarm. “I didn’t know you were on the crime beat.”
“Sure. I cover the organized crime types. You didn’t see my series about the mob in Hollywood?”
“I must have been out of town.”
It seems to take him a moment to decide whether he’s been subtly insulted. Finally he lets it go. “The bloody phone at half-past five-they told me to get right round there. Could have committed murder myself just then-on the bloody city editor.”
Doyle comes out of the shop with his customer. The sun’s angle has changed; the reflections seem even more painful and the heat is a tangible weight. Jennifer holds the iced glass against her forehead. Marian looks pleased because Doyle’s customer has a bulky parcel under his arm-a large paper bag full of books. Another day’s rent taken care of.
Doyle comes to the table and pulls a chair out and waves his empty glass at George. In the meantime Graeme describes his early-morning murder:
“Button named Petrillo. Thirty-seven. Fat bloke, hairy as a gorilla. I’d seen him a few times. They hadn’t loaded him into the ambulance yet because the medical examiners were still taking flash pictures. Cops held us back but I got more of a look at him than I wanted. He’d been shot three or four times-somewhere else, I’d guess. Dumped on the curb downtown where he’d be found.”
Graeme sucks in a mouthful of beer, flutters it around inside his cheek, swallows. The pause is purposeful. Finally he drops the punch line:
“Whoever did it wanted him to be found. He’s a mess. They’ve ripped his bloody tongue out.”
Marian’s face changes: revulsion, then withdrawal-she doesn’t want to hear this. Doyle says, “God almighty.”
Graeme seems pleased by Marian’s infestivity. “There’d been a rumor Petrillo was making some sort of deal to turn state’s evidence and get immunity from prosecution.”
Doyle asks, “Prosecution for what?”
“Cocaine. Petrillo had connections with the Cleveland mob. Allegedly, as we investigative journalists say, he was a conduit for distribution to Ohio. Anyhow, looks like he got his tail in a bloody crack and he was ready to name names to a grand jury and allegedly a contract was put out and he became the victim of a bloody mob hit a block and a half from the courthouse.”
Graeme’s grimace is actorish. “When they tear out your tongue it’s supposed to be a warning to anybody else who may be thinking about finking on his pals. The Mafia are like those bloody fundamentalist Moslems-you steal from a don, they leave you lying around with your bloody hands chopped off. You spy on the wrong people, they find your corpse with no eyes in it. Explicit and expressive, the bloody Cosa Nostra.”
Jennifer pretends to maintain a polite and discreetly shocked interest. In fact her heart pounds painfully and she clenches her muscles against a feeling of faintness. She has never heard of this man Petrillo, but Graeme unwittingly has just dashed her in the face with exactly the images she has tried vigorously to keep out of her mind.
27
What surprises her about Charlie Reid’s place is that it isn’t a hole-in-the-wall apartment.
It’s a decent respectable little house in a cul-de-sac in Reseda. Electronic garage door opener. Azaleas and rose bushes on the front lawn and citrus trees in the high-walled back yard where he does his barbecuing.
In the kid’s bedroom there’s an 8? 10 glossy of Mike and the other kids in the band-Mike hunched over his saxophone looking vulturish, pale eyes hooded like his father’s. Thinner than she’d expected; but the shoulders are wide and he’ll fill out.
She strolls through the house with a drink in her hand. He’s out there cooking the steaks and the foil-wrapped corn and potatoes. He doesn’t seem to mind leaving her alone to her explorations. Does it mean he has no secrets?
She makes her way back to the patio. He’s peering skeptically at the coals. Then he hears the door and looks up at her and likes what he sees: his face brightens. It gratifies her that he approves of her appearance; she spent a bit of careful time deciding what to wear. She’s got on a torquoise squaw blouse and a casual khaki-hued prairie skirt and sandals to match. A Zuni necklace of silver and stones; a beaded belt. She didn’t want to look severe or glitzy or too anxious: but she wanted to draw his eye and she has succeeded.
He says, “Be a while yet. I like to cook them slow.”
“Everything’s so neat and tidy.”
“Cleaning lady was here yesterday,” he says. “I should’ve moved into a smaller place when Mike went away. Probably could get a fair penny for this dump. But I can’t be bothered. Eight percent mortgage and I couldn’t find any place cheaper to live and at least the kid’s got a place to stay if he feels like coming home to see the old man between semesters.”
“Does Mike fly?”
“Some. He got his license two years ago. It’s not a passion with him. He’ll be a Sunday flier.”
“Do you mind?”
“I don’t make the mistake of thinking of him as an extension of myself. He’s got his own life.”
He’s flipping the steaks over. There’s a lot of sizzling. She can smell hickory smoke from the chips he’s sprinkled on the coals.
“What happened to his mother?”
“She was someplace up in Oregon last I heard. Waitressing in a lobster place.” His shrewd glance flashes toward her. “I guess you want to know why I got custody of Mike. She’s a drunk. Happens to a lot of Air Force wives.”
You don’t have to tell me about that, she thinks. My mother and my sisters were just about the only sober women in the-
Stop it. You haven’t got any sisters. Your mother was a housewife and your father was a plumber and you grew up in Phoenix and Chicago, and they died twelve years ago in a four-car pileup. You have no family. For Ellen’s sake-remember that.
“Does Mike ever see his mother?”
“He tried to. For a while. I never put restrictions on it. But it got so he couldn’t stand seeing her boozed up. He writes to her now and then. In a letter you can pretend nothing’s wrong.”
She takes his empty glass inside and mixes him another bourbon and water.
On the kitchen wall hangs a ristra of red tongue-searing chili peppers. There aren’t any curtains. It is unabashedly a man’s kitchen.
She’s still unnerved from this afternoon-the reporter’s wallow in mob-style murder. She feels jumpy. Things keep blundering around inside her, hitting taut cords.
Through the kitchen window she watches him step back from the barbecue and clench his eyes against the smoke.
It’s silly to be coy with him. What’s the sense in delaying any longer? He’s not going to be a pushover for soft lights and bedtime games. Whatever his answer would be then, it’ll be the same now. Get it over with.
She’s rehearsed it long enough: the story in detail. It’s part truth, part fabrication. There ought not to be any questions that can take her by surprise. There’s no excuse for procrastination except fear; and she’s got to set fear aside out of concern for Ellen and the deadline, less than a month now, that hangs over her like a boulder perched
