appetite for gore, Bobby. I want to know what happened to my cousin. He was an athlete; it’s hard for me to picture him slipping and falling like that.”
Bobby’s expression softened a bit. “You’re not thinking he drowned himself, are you?”
I moved my hands indecisively. “He left an urgent message for me with my answering service-I’ve been out of town, you know. I wondered if he might’ve been feeling desperate.”
Bobby shook his head. “Your cousin wasn’t the kind of man to throw himself under a ship. You should know that as well as I do.”
I didn’t want a lecture on the cowardice of suicide. “Is that what happened?”
“If the grain company didn’t let you know, they had a reason. But you can’t accept that, can you?” He sighed. “You’ll probably just go butting your head in down there if I don’t tell you. A ship was tied up at the dock and Boom Boom went under the screw as she pulled away. He was chewed up pretty badly.”
“I see.” I turned my head to look at the Eisenhower Expressway and the unpainted homes lining it.
“It was a wet day, Vicki. That’s an old wooden dock-they get very slippery in the rain. I read the M.E.’s report myself. I think he slipped and fell in. I don’t think he jumped.”
I nodded and patted his head. Hockey had been Boom Boom’s life and he hadn’t taken easily to forced retirement. I agreed with Bobby that my cousin wasn’t a quitter, but he’d been apathetic the last year or so. Apathetic enough to fall under the propeller of a ship?
I tried to push the thought out of my mind as we pulled up in front of the tidy brick ranch house where Boom Boom’s Aunt Helen lived. She had followed a flock of other South Chicago Poles to Elmwood Park. I believe she had a husband around someplace, a retired steel-worker, but, like all the Wojcik men, he stayed far in the background.
Cuthbert let us out in front of the house, then went off to park the limo behind a long string of Cadillacs. Bobby accompanied me to the door, but I quickly lost sight of him in the crowd.
The next two hours put a formidable strain on my frayed temper. Various relatives said it was a pity Bernard insisted on playing hockey when poor dear Marie hated it so much. Others said it was a pity I had divorced Dick and didn’t have a family to keep me busy-just look at Cheryl’s and Martha’s and Betty’s babies. The house was swarming with children: all the Wojciks were appallingly prolific.
It was a pity Boom Boom’s marriage had only lasted three weeks-but then, he shouldn’t have been playing hockey. Why was he working at Eudora Grain, though? Breathing grain dust all his life had killed his father. Still, those Warshawskis never had much stamina anyway.
The small house filled with cigarette smoke, with the heavy smell of Polish cooking, with the squeals of children. I edged my way past one aunt who said she expected me to help wash up since I hadn’t handled any of the preparation. I had vowed that I would not say anything over the baked meats beyond “Yes,” “No,” and “I don’t know,” but it was getting harder.
Then Grandma Wojcik, eighty-two, fat, dressed in shiny black, grabbed my arm in a policeman’s grip. She looked at me with a rheumy blue eye. Breathing onions, she said, “The girls are talking about Bernard.”
The girls were the aunts, of course.
“They’re saying he was in trouble down at the elevator. They’re saying he threw himself under the ship so he wouldn’t be arrested.”
“Who’s telling you that?” I demanded.
“Helen. And Sarah. Cheryl says Pete says he just jumped in the water when no one was looking. No Wojcik ever killed himself. But the Warshawskis… Those Jews. I warned Marie over and over.”
I pried her fingers from my arm. The smoke and noise and the sour cabbage smell were filling my brain. I put my head down to look her in the eyes, started to say something rude, then thought better of it. I fought my way through the smog, tripping over babies, and found the men hovering around a table filled with sausages and sauerkraut in one corner. If their minds had been as full as their stomachs they could have saved America.
“Who are you telling that Boom Boom jumped off the wharf? And how the hell do you know, anyway?”
Cheryl’s husband Pete looked at me with stupid blue eyes. “Hey, don’t lose your pants, Vic. I heard it down at the dock.”
“What trouble was he in at the elevator? Grandma Wojcik says you’re telling everyone he was in trouble down there.”
Pete shifted a glass of beer from one hand to the other. “It’s just talk, Vic. He didn’t get along with his boss. Someone said he stole some papers. I don’t believe it. Boom Boom didn’t need to steal.”
My eyes fogged and I felt my head buzzing. “It’s not true, goddamn you! Boom Boom never did anything cheap in his life, even when he was poor.”
The others stared at me uneasily. “Take it easy, Vic,” one said. “We all liked Boom Boom. Pete said he didn’t believe it. Don’t get so wild over it.”
He was right. What was I doing, anyway, starting a scene at the funeral? I shook my head, like a dog coming out of water, and pushed back through the crowd to the living room. I made my way past a Bleeding Heart of Mary tastefully adorning the front door and went out into the chilly spring air.
I opened my jacket to let the cool air flow through me and cleanse me. I wanted to go home, but my car was at my apartment on Chicago’s North Side. I scanned the street: as I’d feared, Cuthbert and Mallory had long since disappeared. While I looked doubtfully around me, wondering whether I could find a cab or possibly walk to a train station in high heels, a young woman joined me. She was small and tidy, with dark hair falling straight just below her ears, and honey-colored eyes. She wore a pale gray silk shantung suit with a full skirt and a bolero jacket fastened by large mother-of-pearl buttons. She looked elegant, perfect, and vaguely familiar.
“Wherever Boom Boom is, I’m sure he’d rather be there than here.” She jerked her head toward the house and gave a quick, sardonic smile.
“Me too.”
“You’re his cousin, aren’t you… I’m Paige Carrington.”
“I thought I recognized you. I’ve seen you a few times, but only onstage.” Carrington was a dancer who had created a comic one-woman show with the Windy City Balletworks.
She gave the triangular smile audiences loved. “I’ve been seeing a lot of your cousin the last few months. We kept it quiet because we didn’t want Herguth or Greta splashing it around the gossip columns-your cousin was news even when he stopped skating.”
She was right. I was always seeing my cousin’s name in print. It’s funny being close to someone famous. You read a lot about them, but the person in print’s never the one you know.
“I think Boom Boom cared more for you than anyone.” She frowned, thinking about the statement. Even her frown was perfect, giving her an absorbed, considering look. Then she smiled, a bit wistfully. “I think we were in love, but I don’t know. I’ll never be sure now.”
I mumbled something soothing.
“I wanted to meet you. Boom Boom talked about you all the time. He loved you very much. I’m sorry he never introduced us.”
“Yes. I hadn’t seen him for several months… Are you driving back to the city? Can I beg a ride? I had to come out with the procession and my car is on the North Side.”
She pushed the white silk cuff emerging from her jacket sleeve and looked at her watch. “I have to be at a rehearsal in an hour. Okay if I drop you downtown?”
“That’d be great. I feel like Br’er Rabbit out here in suburbia-I need to get back to my brier patch.”
She laughed at that. “I know what you mean. I grew up in Lake Bluff myself. But now when I go out there to visit I feel like my oxygen’s been cut off.”
I looked at the house, wondering if I should make a formal farewell. Good manners certainly dictated it, but I didn’t want a fifteen-minute lecture on why I should clean up both the dishes and my life. I shrugged and followed Paige Carrington down the street.
She drove a silver Audi 5000. Either the Windy City Balletworks paid better than the average struggling theater or the Lake Bluff connection supplied money for shantung suits and foreign sports cars.
Paige drove with the quick, precise grace that characterized her dancing. Since neither of us knew the area, she made a few wrong turns in the rows of identical houses before finding an access ramp to the Eisenhower.
She didn’t say much on the ride back to town. I was quiet too, thinking about my cousin and feeling melancholy-and guilty. That was why I’d had a temper tantrum with those stupid, hulking cousins, I realized. I
