“I take it we’re going up to William’s first?” The deputy didn’t even look in the mirror. His turn indicator started to click.
Hooker sunk back into the seat, and zombie rolled his head into the window. “Of course, you know Uncle Willie.” Manny shot him a commiserating grin. Just when he thought Hooker had figured out how everyone in law enforcement knew everyone else, he made these little surprise discoveries.
The deputy looked in the mirror at the tow truck driver sidelined by a handful of dimes delivered by a twelve-gauge shotgun a few months before. “You know the 1952 Hudson Hornet over in the far corner under the green tarp? It’s mine. I’m still looking for a Lincoln flathead sixteen to jam up to the fluid drive and pozzie rear end.” He took the right turn to head up the hill to the house connected to the oversized barn of the garage he was talking about, and he glanced back at Manny. “But until then—William and Maddie are finished racing the convertible Dart GT that was yours—so I’m thinking of buying it.”
“What the hell are you going to do with a nine-second car?”
“We thought we could get her down into the low eights... but instead, we’re going to pull the 340 Hemi and stick a 318 in her, so I have a nice dependable daily runner.” They didn’t have to see his face to know he had a love-struck smile on his face.
Manny looked at Hooker. “I thought Willie didn’t have any kids.”
Hooker laughed. “It looks like Willie has been duping us all these years.” As they pulled into the driveway, the subject of their derision strolled out into the sun in all of his glory. Hooker groaned.
His uncle’s florid blue granny dress had a large burn hole at thigh height. It was high enough to see Willie was taking the day commando. The dress stopped short of the battered engineer boots with the bands of silver Concho hearts over the instep. The welding helmet was thrown up over his head, which pulled the skin on his face and accentuated the jagged scar started under the right side of his jaw and ripped a pinkish-white highway across the throat and up the side of his face in front of his left ear. The scar with its final star pattern was a souvenir of the meat hook from which he had been suspended for three days, before it finally ripped across his throat, tore through his shattered jawbone, and out of his face.
Ten minutes later, he had killed seven of his Viet Cong jailers, and then led and carried six other men through the jungle to freedom, a hundred and forty kilometers and seventeen days later.
Willie removed his large leather welding gloves and opened the side door. The deputy came around to help get Manny out of the van.
“Jeez, Willie, this one has got to be the ugliest dress you have ever dragged home.” Hooker half covered his face in mock terror.
The deputy smiled and leaned in toward Willie and stage whispered, “He hasn’t seen the pink and lavender one, has he?” Willie started laughing and slapped the man on the chest with the gloves.
“Ssstop!” he lisped.
Hooker knew Willie only let his Nancy come out and dance when he was among trusted friends and those he considered family. Hooker groaned more and held his head as he lay forward onto Manny’s shoulder. “Oh, Gawd, Manny, the kid actually is his.”
Manny sat stoically. He let Hooker play, but he had things more serious on his mind.
Willie sobered and looked at the detective. “You’re coming from the railcar?”
Manny nodded.
“Chet stopped by about an hour ago. He’s not officially back to work, but he was down there, too. They hadn’t cleared the car yet. How bad was it?”
“He got worse.” Manny thought about it. “They are bringing duplicate photo sets of everything out to the house tonight. Paul is coming over for dinner. Why don’t you join us unless you have a date?”
“Hank and I were just going to grill some roadkill here, but I can bring him and give Stella someone to talk to about cooking.”
Manny hiccupped a laugh. “Oh, that’s even better. She’s getting the outside kitchen ready for the annual canning. I’m sure it’s about time Hank receives the final indoctrination into the perverse side of this family.”
They both smiled as Hooker buried his face in his left hand. The cast on his right kept his dominant hand away from his face.
“Perfect. Hanky can schlep canning stuff with the best of them.” Willie turned toward his ward who was eyeing the large burn hole on the dress. “Do you need anything from your room, Hooker?”
“Willie, I spend my days barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt. But if there are any jeans here near wearing out, I could cut them down for shorts.” He put his hand along his face and turned it to hide the dress.
The three laughed at the slapstick humor as the deputy joined in.
Willie hung his hand on his now out-thrust hip. “Don’t knock the coolness of a chintz dress, young man.” His Nancy was in full steam.
The other three men groaned and then laughed.
Hooker shot back. “But those boots and gloves offset any advantage you get from the dress.”
Willie lifted the hem of his dress. “Not this advantage.”
Manny just looked at the deputy with a pleading look. The deputy sprang into action and rounded the van. Climbing in, he acknowledged with a train conductor’s voice. “All aboard! Next stop, Dolly’s Dispatch.”
The van nosed around and out of the giant driveway. Halfway down the hill, the deputy broke the silence. “If I may ask, why does he wear those dresses? He only destroys them with the welding and all.”
Hooker chuffed with a short laugh. “It’s economics. He buys them by the bagful at the Goodwill. They would cost him fifty cents each, but by the bag, they cost about a quarter. A pair of bib overalls, if you can find them, would run upward of two or three bucks. So, its dresses by the bagful or go pay retail for work pants. The pants wouldn’t last as long as a shopping bag of dresses, and he doesn’t buy them by the shopping bag—he uses the thirty-gallon trash bags.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to remember that.”
Hooker and Manny both buried their faces in their hands. He really must be Willie’s love child.
“Oh, I didn’t mean for me. I meant for when I need to bribe him, I should make a run-through the Goodwill first.” He rolled the steering wheel right and eased around the ramp onto the freeway. “Do you know what size he wears?”
Hooker growled back. “Anyone at Goodwill can tell you. They probably set those ugly dresses aside for him. Nobody else would be caught dead in something so visually abusive.”
The rest of the drive was thankfully in silence.
Dispatch was a gray cinderblock building hunkered down in the corner of a large parking lot. As per normal, there were only three cars in the lot. But Hooker had seen many New Year’s mornings when the overflow of tow trucks, plumbing trucks, security vans, and cop cars turned the quiet side street into a parking lot.
As they got Manny settled in his chair and started toward the steel-plated door, it swung open. A quarter ton of Florida orange muumuu over bare feet walked out into the sunshine. Dolly lifted a large arm and shielded her eyes from the painful light.
“Who the hell are you two?”
Hooker took the lead and walked into the large hug and buried his nose down into the woman’s fat neck. “Hello, sweetie. Miss me?”
Her right arm came up and trapped his head hard into her neck as she giggled. “Don’t you dare tickle my neck like you do your fat girlfriends, you little pervert, just give Mama a hug. And don’t talk. It will ruin the fantasy of you being a perfect child.” They laughed together. Dolly was the surrogate mother for many young tow truck drivers who had no one else to care about them. Three weeks after Willie had caught Hooker trying to hotwire his car, she had taken over the duty of putting him to work. He was only fourteen but lied and had a bad fake driver’s license saying he was twenty. She found him a better-looking license and a job jump-starting cars and running parts for a tow company. He had now been connected to them for over ten years. He let go of her so she could hug her brother-in-law.
She didn’t have to say a word as she swooped down on the man in the wheelchair.
After a minute, Manny told her, “In nineteen states, this would be seen as a mugging. In two others, it would be seen as rape. In Arkansas, they would just call it incest, and it would all be good. But you would have to explain things to your sister.”
Dolly backed her shaking jello into the shade of the door. “Get in here. I’m not going to stand out here in this heat.” She looked out at the deputy. “Steven, are you coming in or are you standing out there like a stupid or crazed dog?”
“Coming, ma’am.”
“Coffee is fresh, just made it last night.”
The deputy doubled his walk. “Perfect, ma’am.”
She shot him a stern eye for his obvious sucking up.
The three sat near Dolly’s desk. Dolly held court from her custom oversized welded steel office executive chair that had four pneumatic rams instead of the usual single one that was only rated for two-hundred pounds. Her bare feet were crossed on the desk near The Stick.
“Chet stopped by earlier.”
Manny sipped on his coffee. “He gets around for a guy who is supposed to be recovering from a gunshot wound.”
She looked at Hooker, who was paying close attention to the coffee in his mug. “Hmm, yes—seems to be going around lately.”
She looked back at Manny. “How’s my sister doing with all this extra work?” She referred to taking care of Hooker while he too recovered from gunshot wounds on top of tending to Manny.
Manny ignored the jab. “Oh, the canning is coming along just fine. We have a new tent that will be about sixty feet long by the same twenty. It should give plenty of shade when you come to peel potatoes. And with the Squirt out of the way, she’s almost bored and looking for something to do.”
She gave him a deadpan look before her head fell back into the zombie-head family response to dumb questions or statements.
The deputy giggled. Hooker looked over, and the word Nancy drifted through his head.
Manny braced his forearms on the arms of the chair and rocked forward to adjust the pressure on his rear end. To those who knew him, it was also his way of clearing his throat.
“Willie is coming over for dinner, along with Paul. I think it would be good to tap into Willie’s Naval Intelligence thinking. With all that time he spent in the jungles of Vietnam, I think he might have a better take on some of this aboriginal mindset. Maybe we can finally get a grasp on all this message shit the asshole is writing.”
Dolly, ignoring Manny’s language and venting, snapped her fingers and pointed to Hooker. “That reminds me, Father Damian has a message for you. Said that any night you could make it up for dinner at your usual time, let Candy know. Oh, and don’t bring cigarettes, he’s quitting.”
“Maybe I can get up there tonight after we go over this stuff. If Stella won’t loan me the Caddie, she can schlep me. She wants to meet Squirt’s big sister, anyway. I think she’s working on trying to get Candy a slot at the college for nursing school.”
Dolly made her living listening to people and more of how they said things than what they said. She was listening to the tension in Hooker’s voice.
“How long before you have your girlfriend back?” She was referring to the eleven tons of steel that were Hooker’s tow truck.
Hooker sunk into his seat. She had scored a direct bull’s-eye.
“Willie said that he couldn’t even get three of the pistons out of the case because they were seized in there so bad. He’ll have to drill and shatter them. The case will have to be sleeved to a larger bore, which means that we have to figure the stroke to balance her out. The pistons may have to be custom cast, and that would take until fall. So all told, I would say Mae West might be a Christmas present all over again. He was referring to the Christmas that they had found her in Oregon, and then the next Christmas when she became a tow truck. But to get me back on the road, Don is going to put me in a one-ton and have me just run service calls until the doc says I can pull regular duty.”
Dolly looked at Manny with the same look that Manny knew all too well from his wife. The look that said I lay this at your feet. You’re the man. It is all your fault.
Manny put up his hands. “I have nothing to do with this. Stella works his physical therapy, and what she says, goes in the house. You know that, I know that, and he knows that. Hell, even Box knows that... but he just ignores it. And he is the only male who can get away with it, too.”
Dolly didn’t have to say not to be trash-talking about her favorite fur chest warmer. She was the only person who could pick Hooker’s cat up other than Hooker, and even Hooker avoided that kind of contact as much as possible. He had seen what the burly warrior cat could do to a human face or hand.
Hooker calmed the tension. “The truck he has is an automatic. I could drive it with one hand. So even with a cast, I can run service calls. Dolly, trust me. I won’t lie to you or Stella if I am in pain. I am not a stupid kid... most of the time. I’ll take it easy. I’m in for the long haul here, and I need my body to be right as much as I need Mae’s engine to be right.”
She watched him for a minute as she sipped her coffee. She looked at her coffee and then she looked over at the two women wrangling with the phone lines. Dispatch, being the answering service for most of the businesses in the San Jose area, was also the dispatch for all of the alarm companies, and most of the plumbers and electricians. They were the only dispatch for all of the independent tow companies, and after midnight, the only dispatch for the auto clubs, sheriff, highway patrol, and ambulance. Most calls for the city police and fire department went through the city dispatcher but could switch over after the ten o’clock shift change if they needed it.
“Karen, is this coffee the new beans I ordered in from San Diego?”
“Yes, ma’am, they are.”
“Don’t let me do that again. There is absolutely no kick in this coffee at all. I’m falling asleep just sitting here listening to Hooker drone on about his girlfriend.”
The two women at the switchboard looked at each other and smiled. “Lucky you, we think it would be yummy to fall asleep with Hooker.” They giggled like schoolgirls.
Dolly ground her head around and glared at Hooker.
He raised his hands and cast. “Hey, you saw. I didn’t get anywhere near them, much less nuzzle their necks.”
“You three are incorrigible.” She looked back at the two giggling girls. “Dina, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re newly married and pregnant to boot. Karen... Karen, you’re just being nasty. Wait until I get home tomorrow and tell your father.”
It had been a running joke for many years that she looked like Dolly’s husband even though he could never have kids. However, the family that was made was every bit as strong as the family that was born. Only Dolly and Hooker knew that if Dolly passed away, Karen would own dispatch with Hooker as a partner. Hooker knew that he never wanted Dolly to leave him four walls and no window. He’d rather have the grief and love she handed out in fair amounts.
“Well, we ought to let the young deputy get back to real work, and I’m sure it’s getting close to time to set the table or take a nap.” Manny stretched as he spoke.
Remembering, Dolly snapped her fingers. “Hooker, there is a box of Chiaramonte’s Sicilian in the fridge. I had it towed down when Stella called. Mike had to come bring me some new information for the company, so I had him run by.”
Hooker got the ten-pound box of sausage as Dolly rose to get hugs all around. Each person always got a hug and a ‘stay safe’ when they walked out the steel-plated door that had five bullets still stuck in it. It was a rough neighborhood, and Dolly knew, sometimes an even rougher city.
As she let Hooker go, she reminded him to call Candy and to go meet with Father Damian some night around midnight soon.