tangled rags.
Dominic said, “Hey hey, this was all supposed to be, well, gone, you know?”
He kicked a welter of paper into a heap near the wall, wiping his head again and then his throat. “Christ. Fucking skinflint Jimmy Shu.” He let loose a burdened sigh. “Let me show you the back,” he said.
In the rear there was a foldaway bed, a table, a radio. Abatangelo found himself imagining Shel sitting there, on the bed, smiling up at him.
Dominic said, “Simple and small. Hope it don’t remind you too much of prison. I’ll get a broom, a pan, get the front cleaned up.”
“Dominic, slow down. Go back to the bar. I’m grateful.”
Dominic stood still for the first time. He nodded thoughtfully a moment, then looked up into Abatangelo’s face.
“Your mother was a very dear woman,” he said. “Don’t think she didn’t miss you. Her only boy, in prison. For drugs, Christ. It broke her heart. You broke her goddamn heart.”
Abatangelo reached out for the old man’s shoulder but Dominic recoiled. He wiped his mouth and looked at his feet. “I’m gonna say this,” he said. “Say it once and that’s it. And I won’t regret it.” He looked up. His chin bobbed angrily. “Nina’s right in one respect, you know? If your father had been a better man, eh? Instead of a piece of shit. Maybe none of this woulda happened.” He let the words hang there a moment, nodding to himself as though, in hearing the echo in his mind, he felt certain the words were true. Finally, he turned to leave.
“Dominic? One last thing.”
Dominic stopped. “Yeah, sure, what?”
“Not to take advantage,” Abatangelo said. “But I need a car.”
From the hallway Frank stared at the door to the guest room. Shel had holed herself up in there again, right after fixing lunch. He listened for sounds from inside, thinking: She’s gonna brood the rest of the day away. Gonna sit there and stare at the wall and run through her smokes. All she needs is a record player and a bunch of sad songs.
He shivered a little, wondering what it was that had come over her. Had she found someone else? Didn’t she realize that whatever he did, everything he did, he did for her?
Well, all right then, he thought. It’s up to me. Get our asses out of here and start up new. For all her moody sulking, for all her wandering off sometimes in the middle of something he was trying to tell her, she was still the one good thing in his life. She deserves to get out of here as much as I do, he told himself. She deserves better.
He left the house, started his truck and drove out to the highway, heading for West Pittsburg for his meet with the twins.
Secretly, he knew part of the reason behind his plan was to make amends. He hadn’t been entirely honest. Even with all the things she’d figured out, forced out of him, there were still a million left to tell. All the times he’d said he was going out to a construction site to pound nails or hoist Sheetrock, he was actually walking bogus picket lines in the valley, shaking down contractors. If he wasn’t shaking them down he was ripping them off, stealing equipment, tools, hardware, even trucks.
On occasion he manned a crank lab, sucking fumes, standing watch. Once the batch was cooked he’d help dump the dregs, trying not to get poisoned for the privilege.
He’d be gone for as long as a week sometimes, telling Shel they were in Fresno or Merced or Oroville. It was during those prolonged periods away that he binged. Sometimes it took a couple of days to get straight enough so he could walk back in without giving the whole charade away. Sometimes he wondered if she was even paying attention. That hurt. And when he hurt, he wanted to party. Roy Akers obliged; he was more than happy to keep Frank zoomed out of his skull.
Frank was so behind on his nut now the whole thing was way out of hand. Shel knew he owed money; she had no idea how bad it was. And he didn’t dare tell her. Regardless, on top of everything else, he was nabbing cars for Roy now, like he was in fucking high school. Which was one of the reasons he got talked down to by absolutely everybody, treated like a grunt. I’m sick of the Akers brothers strutting around like they’re the kickass of crime, he thought. Time to make a little score, blow on out of Dodge.
Me and my redhead nurse.
At West Pittsburg he got off the freeway and onto surface streets again, heading toward the water. On Black Diamond Street, a rotting whitewashed billboard displayed a spray-paint chaos of gang names and street handles: The Jiminos, Vicious Richie, Hype Rita, the Beacon Street Dutch. Broken bodies lined the street, grinders, rappies, honks, a line of vacant-eyed women eager to work twists. Party balloons, emptied of hop, lay scattered down the sidewalk.
Reverend Ben’s sat at the end of a cul-de-sac named Freedom Court. The sign above the doorway read:
REVEREND BEN’S APOLLO CLUB
UPLIFTING REVIVALS
GIANT TV
SHUFFLEBOARD
Frank pulled behind the building and parked. The tar paper roof bristled with cattle wire. Candy wrappers and a discarded tampon littered the gravel.
At the doorway Frank hit a stench of gummed-up liquor wells and rancid rubber. As his eyes grew accustomed to the change of light, the barroom came into focus. A large empty room with scattered metal chairs, cracked linoleum, bare bulbs screwed into wall sockets for light.
No giant TV. No uplifting revival.
The bartender, with the chest and arms of a man twice his height, watched Frank wander for a bit. He wore a tight knit shirt and had a shaved head. This, Frank guessed, was Reverend Ben.
Two old men sat with their drinks at the bar. Frank got a feeling of slick, good-natured harmlessness from both, which reassured him. The nearest one farted loudly, and the other looked around in mock astonishment.
“Low-flying duck,” said the first.
“You got mail,” said the other.
The rest of the room was empty. No twins, not yet. Frank ordered a beer and sauntered toward the jukebox, eyeing the hand-scrawled selections. Hop Wilson’s “Black Cat Bone.” Sonny Terry’s “Crow Jane.” John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake Blues.” Reading the handwritten titles, he couldn’t help feeling that, if he put a quarter in, he’d choose exactly the one song they’d hate him for.
One of the old men drifted up behind. He waved his hand at Frank as though to say:
“Don’t be pretending you know those tunes,” he said, entering the jukebox glow. He wore a bow tie and a white shirt. His cologne overwhelmed the stench of the bar. He leaned down, staring into the bright machinery. “Slip in your quade.”
Frank took out a quarter and did as he was told.
“Pick this,” the man said, pointing out a song. His hands were large and fluid, the fingers thick as rope. Albert King, “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven.”
Frank hesitated.
“Go on, won’t electrocute you.”
Frank punched in the code. The man said, “Then this,” pointing out another song. Elmore James, “Shake Your Moneymaker.” The man stood back and smiled.
“Feel better already, don’cha?”
The first song started out slow and raw. The old man recoiled softly, closing his eyes and working each arm as his hips rocked back and forth. Turning back around to his friend, he sang loud when the verse started, his voice a roar, like a preacher’s.
