Danny was a force of nature. At six foot five, he was built like the most frightening lineman the Forty-Niners could ever dream of having. Incongruously, he was also the most settled person one could be around. His movements were spare, and he was the kind of guy who had about seventy words a day in him. Get to number seventy, and you’ll have to see him tomorrow for the rest of the sentence. Unless, of course, if he is met at the door by Stella. She could make the dead talk like they were at a Toastmaster’s meeting.
The door flung open, and before he could take evasive action, he had a large soft chest shoved into his lower half where other people would have a belly. Danny had a six-pack made more from steel than aluminum, but it was susceptible to being made happy with a very full-bodied hug from Stella or his mother, Tilly.
“Danny, Danny, Danny. You get better looking every day. So much so, I just can hardly wait until next Sunday when you bring,” Stella pushed back from him and gave him the eye, “your mama and Sweets out for dinner.”
Danny stumbled through his memories. Not finding an appointment involving a Sunday dinner, he quickly made the notation. “Yes, ma’am. You can expect us about...?” he fished.
Stella flirted with a passing slap across his white shirt and chest. “Oh, shucks, Danny, any time after four is all good. I know Sweets sleeps until two or so. Now, come on in and have some coffee while you tell me how your mama is.” She grabbed his hand before a no, thank you could escape his lips.
On seeing the giant black man in tow, Manny greeted him from his throne of the sunroom. “Danny!” he yelled with his arms raised.
Stella waved with her palm facing down. “Manny, I have told you a thousand times. The boys are black, and Danny’s brother is blind. Neither one of them is deaf. But with your yelling at them, they will get there soon.”
Danny leaned over and side hugged her as he kissed her on the top of the head. “I’ve got this, Mama.” He strode into the sunroom.
Manny frowned with an ugly face. “Oh, lawd, you been losing weight?” Same old joke.
Danny pulled his custom-made shirt away from his sides near his belt line. “A little.” Looking up with a worried face, he asked, “You don’t think it looks good on me?”
The two laughed and shook hands. Old school respect—no thumb jig, none of the hand jive—just shook. It was the sign of the straight, simple respect the two had for each other—no fluff.
Danny sat at the other end of the couch where Manny was reclining. Hanging out on the couch was Manny’s one vacation from the constant reminder he was not the man he used to be.
The couch was custom built for the sunroom when Manny still walked the halls of San Jose Police Department as a senior detective. On his days off, he enjoyed reading the paper in the sunroom with Stella. The length of the couch allowed both to stretch out reading or dozing.
They had designed the entire room around napping and enjoying the morning overlooking the Almaden Valley spread out below. The sunroom was the kingdom Manny and Stella took turns ruling, but on Sundays—it was a shared domain.
Manny sipped from his mug, the one with the gold detective badge molded onto it. Quietly, he asked about Danny’s brother. “How is Sweets these days?”
Danny took the large mug from Stella as she sat on the ottoman to listen. He took a long sip and closed his eyes. The soft smile warmed and softened his face. It was the face of the man Stella liked best and held in her heart.
His life was of driver and bodyguard for his little brother. Blind since high school, his brother Sweets was now a night disc jockey for the local radio station. His popularity was legion. He could have had the more prestigious day shifts, but the night and the people who were awake and working then were what Sweets called His People. The simple fact was he knew he was allowed more leeway in the music he chose to play—even though it was against the company’s programming.
Danny forced his eyes open and licked his thinned lips with just the tip of his tongue. Spare movements. “Sweets is doing okay. It’s the end of a cycle, so he has to memorize the next eighty songs and their colors.” He was referring to the new program routine where the owners of the company send out a new list every ninety days, and the DJ plays the songs by their color. Sweets had to have the list memorized because of his blindness. But he also played the music he wanted to play, a country-western sound, but more like a cowboy-who-likes-rock-and-roll kind of sound.
“Do you help him with that?”
“Not for the last few cycles. The East Coast finally got their heads around Sweets being blind, so they sent the list in braille. Mama helps him with the colors. The idiots still stick the color dot next to a line of braille.” He did a fair imitation of Stella and Hooker’s favorite physical commentary on all things dumb—he rolled his head with his tongue out in an almost perfect zombie roll. He ended up looking into the eyes of Box on the back of the couch. They held each other’s stare.
Danny had never figured out whether Box was friend or foe. Box kept him guessing. Danny’s calm disguised any fear, or maybe respect. The only thing he truly feared was his mother, Tilly Sweets, a force of nature to be reckoned with. Be on her good side, and life was glorious. Be on her bad side, and hell would be a nice vacation.
Box slowly closed his eye in measured disdain, walked along the couch back, and headed for the kitchen. He passed Hooker. Hooker only glanced at his partner and smirked. He knew there had been a face-off, and once again, the smaller fur man had won.
“Hey, big guy. I saw someone come in, but you’ve lost so much weight, I didn’t realize it was you.”
Danny stood and glared at the famous Hooker smile. In the last seven years, neither one had won this face-off. Once Hooker turned eighteen and was legal to tow, he stopped backing down from anything—tow or fight.
The two laughed and hugged. Danny growled like he hated it. It was a standing joke.
“We need to go. Mama put the quiche in as I was leaving.”
Stella grabbed the man’s tree of an arm. “What kind?”
“Don’t worry. If it don’t kill us, she’ll bring you the recipe on Sunday.”
Hooker called down the hall as they opened the front door. “Box, stay. Torment Stella and Manny.” The cat stuck his head out of their bedroom door. The single eye was noncommittal, but the ear twitched. Hooker pointed his finger at him from the cast. “Behave. I’ll be back soon and bring you some roadkill from Tilly.”
Hooker had long admired the perfectly kept suicide-door Lincoln from the outside. The engine surged quietly as they headed down the hill of stupid to the Sweets home in Willow Glen. Hooker looked around the interior. His left hand stroked the soft leather.
Danny’s eyes missed nothing—a small smile slid across his face. He settled back into his place in the world. This was his domain. Sweets may own the car—but Danny ruled it.
“Nice, huh?”
Hooker’s eyebrows went up in appreciation. His hand did not hesitate its stroking of the smooth coolness. “It’s softer than my jacket.” He thought a moment and remembered what was left after the emergency medical units had finished cutting him out of it. He almost chuckled at the eight pieces of leather held together with surgical tape so he could wander around the hospital in his signature leather jacket—until Willie, in disgust, took it and burned it. “Was.”
Danny frowned and then remembered, too. His right eye slowly closed as he made a mental note about birthdays. A few years before, his brother Sweets and he had taken Hooker out to dinner and his first truly legal drink. The date was in October, and it would be in his past datebook.
Hooker leaned against the door and looked out the window listlessly.
“What?”
Hooker looked back through the front glass. “I was thinking how nice the leather would feel in Mae when we get her rebuilt... then I was just thinking about Mae.” He looked over at Danny. “Willie says I baked, raked, and snaked the engine. We have to find a new one.”
The large man looked over at the depressed young white kid. He needed to be kicked in the ass and cheered up at the same time. Danny growled his throat clear. “Your scrawny bone for an ass would have torn up this sort of leather inside of a month. Probably wouldn’t make it through the first week and a good fart. If you’re going to have leather seats, you need some tougher stuff than what you get in your jackets. You’ll need oil-tanned boot leather.
“Go over the hill to Santa Cruz to the tannery and pick up some yellow and blue leather so it looks right for that rig of yours. Any of the upholstery shops in town can reupholster the seats for you.”
Hooker looked at the big man and laughed. “Danny?”
The man nosed the large car into the neat driveway with a perfect lawn on each side. He followed the short curve to the front door. “What?”
“Did someone adjust your word limit to a higher count?”
The big V8 burbled to silence. Danny stared at the front of the long hood. Slowly his head ground its way around to look at Hooker, who was on the verge of laughing. “Fuck you, fool.” His imitation of an angry man made the response even more hilarious for Hooker.
Hooker rolled out his door, laughing. Danny steamed.
The front door opened as Danny made it there first. “What is going on out here?”
Danny squeezed past his mother. “Ain’t talking,” he grumped.
She turned to see her adopted white son. He was laughing so hard she knew it had to be something to do with her oldest and largest. Her fists found their usual resting place on her hips. “And what is so funny about you harassing your big brother?”
Hooker pulled himself together enough to stumble into her arms. He loved hugging her. There was no halfway or sort of with Tilly. When it came to hugs, she was in all the way. You knew when you were hugged by Tilly Sweets.
As they started to break apart, Hooker whispered in her ear. “Try to get him to say two more words today.”
She knew her son. She rolled her eyes and then gave Hooker a ‘Tilly’ look as she slapped his chest with the hand towel. “Hooker, you leave your brother alone, or I will withhold dessert from everyone, including Sweets.”
“Did I just hear my name being taken in vain?” The smooth-as-silk voice came from the front room.
Hooker closed the front door as Tilly headed back toward the kitchen.
“No, Sweets.” Hooker strolled into the living room and was met in the middle by the slender man. There was a soft ticking sound coming from the man, and Hooker knew it was his sounding for objects around him, much like a bat. He put out his hand as he crossed into the room. “We were just commenting about being so late. We just knew you were probably starved and chewing on the furniture.”
He took the outstretched hand and stepped in for a hug. If you hug one of the Sweets family—then you hug all three.
Tilly sang out from the kitchen. “Quiche.”
None of the four was bashful around food. Amazingly, for the size of him, Danny ate little more than Sweets did. But the pie dish was showing nothing but the glass at the bottom. The biscuits had been the most amazing, as they were sourdough without any mistakes.
Hooker pushed back from his plate. He was too full to get up and clear his dishes just yet. Tilly followed suit, and Sweets still had a few bites to go. Danny got up unbidden. Without a word, he cleared all the dishes. He returned with a fresh carafe of coffee and poured his mother’s cup full. He likewise filled Sweets and his, and then set the carafe in the middle and sat down.
Tilly gave him a hard look. He just sat with a deadpan look. “Danny, be a dear and see if there is any milk in the fridge?”
Danny looked at Hooker. He shook his head.
“Is that a No, there isn’t any or no, I won’t do what my dear sweet mother who carried me for nine and a half months, breastfed me until I was...”
Danny bolted up. He returned with the half-gallon of milk and placed it beside the only person he knew who used it, Hooker. He went into the living room, leaving the three alone to talk.
Sweets looked to a place just above Hooker’s head. “Did I miss something?”
Hooker folded his napkin and placed it on the table. He confessed contritely, “I asked him if someone had upped his word allowance. He was unusually chatty. I guess he got mad.” He started to get up.
Sweets reached out to the air near Hooker. “Leave him be. He’s a big man. The conversation you entered started several days ago. It wasn’t even your conversation, and you are right, Danny is a quiet man. He always was a man of few words. But this fight, you didn’t start.
“About a week ago, I had Danny going through some old records back in the cold storage room. He overheard one of the engineers at the station explaining to someone else the reason he was so quiet was he didn’t have much in the way of brains and had nothing to talk about or say.”
“But that isn’t even half true.”
“You know it, I know it, and Mom knows it, but the engineer hasn’t spent any time with Danny, and so he doesn’t know it. But in his world, it is all about his perception, not ours.”
“It’s still a mean thing to say.”
“True, but I doubt if I approach the man, he will ever see Danny as anything but a giant black man, and in his mind, that means Baby Huey.” Sweets got a thoughtful look on his face. “As I said, the man has spent no time getting to know Danny, but you teased him because he had something to say.”
Hooker had known it was wrong the moment he had said it, but he didn’t know how to make it right. “And I feel like the stink on the bottom of a misstep on the lawn.”
Sweets smiled his megawatt smile and made things all right. “I think you two are both man enough to get over it.”
Hooker thought as they all three sipped. He noticed Tilly, the consummate mother hen, quietly watching over her brood.
“So what do you think his opinion of Sweets is?” Hooker smiled even though he knew Sweets was blind. He also felt Sweets could feel or hear he was smiling.
“I don’t have a problem with, or from, the man. So I would be prejudiced if I tried to put words in his mouth. They might be right. They might be far wrong. I’m just not going to do it.”
“This brings up something else I have wondered about for years—the name Sweets. It’s your last name, but Danny and even your mother here call you by it.”
Sweets’ chuckle grew into a belly laugh. Tilly had tears squished from the corners of her eyes she was laughing so hard. Hooker joined in the infectious laughter with no inkling of what they had found so hilarious.
Danny walked in from the living room where he had been reading. His index finger marked his place in the middle of the book. He frowned at the other two and turned his glare on Hooker. “What?”
Hooker smiled, he had at least one more word out of the big man. “I only asked why you two call your brother by y’all’s last name. You are all Sweets, but with you two, only Sweets is Sweets.”
Danny thought a moment and looked at his family. The giant man softly shushed his chinos onto the chair and poured himself some more coffee. “It’s his name.” He glared at his brother and mother who were now laughing even harder. Sweets had even stopped making any noise. He was in silent convulsions. Tilly was threatening to bash her chin with her undulating chest. Danny sipped his coffee and growled.
Knowing he wasn’t going to get any help or contradictions from his family, he put his coffee mug down and looked at Hooker.
He jabbed his right thumb toward his brother. “It started at the hospital. The wimp was in welding class in high school. Some ass...” He looked to see if his mother was listening. “Some ass-wipe dropped an oxygen bottle. The steel table sheared off the head. The bottle became a missile, and after bouncing off two walls and taking out four welding booths, it hit Sweets in the head.” Hooker nodded. He had heard this part before.
Danny sipped calmly on his coffee. The memories made the vein in his forehead swell and pulse. “When I got back up here from USC, where I was on scholarship, I went right to the hospital from the bus station. His head was just a big ball of white wrapping, just like you were a few months ago. We still didn’t know if he would live or die. Hell, I didn’t even know for sure it was even him. All I could see was a big white ball with two scrawny little black arms hanging out down the sheets. They had tubes going in and more coming out. He looked like a Boy Scout knotting class gone wrong.
“Being the only smart guy in the room, I grabbed the medical chart off the end of his bed. Some ignorant fuckhead…”
Tilly reached out and backhanded his shoulder. He turned on her.
“Then you tell it.”
She laughed harder and rolled her hand in the air. She couldn’t stand it. She leaned over and hugged her arms around his big arm and pushed her cheek into his shoulder. The left hand rolled again in the air.
Danny gave her a sympathetic look of disgust and turned back to Hooker. “They had him on the chart as Sweet Christopher. Not even Christopher Sweet... but Sweet Christopher—no comma.”
Hooker frowned. His left index finger extended open from his hand. “His first name is Christopher?” His other hand took up the load of the mug, the cast working as ridged scaffolding.
“No. That’s the point. They had him all screwed up. It was after visiting hours, and the head nurse came trotting down the hall to shoo me out. I spun on her like she was a right tackle. She might have outweighed me, but I had her by at least a head and shoulder. I put my finger on the name and quietly explained to her the grievous error of her ways and the ways of the hospital. I had her backtracked and hard up against the nurse’s desk.
“I told her the name was Sweets—plural. Not rock candy, not gumdrops, not gooey cinnamon rolls, but all of them—Sweets. And when she started to point to the name Christopher, I snapped. I yelled his name was not Christopher... it was Sweets. She asked what the last name was. I guess I growled or something. I told her in no uncertain terms... Sweets.”
The whole table chorused. Then they all started laughing.
Finally, Hooker got enough control. “Then what is your first name?”
The three chorused the same. Hooker raised his hands in surrender. And laughed. He was sure he knew who the charge nurse was on the fateful night. He knew all the important fat necks to nuzzle. He rubbed his scars on his right side. They were still tender.
Sweets was first to break the contemplative silence. “When do you get the cast off?”
Hooker looked up. “One more week. They say the pain will be worse once I start moving those muscles.”
Danny leaned forward. “I’ll come rub the knots out. I can work out some stretches for you, too. I notice when you walk you’re still bound up on the right side.”
“I’d like that, Danny.” He smiled. “So we’re good now?”
“No.” The twinkle danced in the whole family’s eyes was there. “You’re still underfed.”
“Yeah, well, it’s Stella’s cooking. She has me on some crazy restrictive diet and all.”
The two jabbed with the verbal sparring dance that happens with brothers. Tilly cleared the last of the serving dishes and unused silverware. Puttering around in the kitchen, she made a fresh pot of coffee.
Hooker noticed first. “You’re awful quiet there, Sweets.”
The man turned his face to where Hooker was. “When did you last talk to your sister?”
The laughs were over. The meal was eaten. The pleasantries were finished. It was now time for the work. It was time to get down to the real reason Hooker was in Sweets’ domain.
“The Mouse? Just before I got shot. Why?”
“Any contact from her lately?”
Hooker’s mind raced. How does he do…? It had long since stopped being creepy or even scary. It was now a great curiosity.
“Last night. She sent a rhyme puzzle. Actually, it was two of them.”
“How did you get them?”
Hooker pointed into the air between them. “And there is the curiosity. She sent it verbally through an intermediary she used to torment. He’s very afraid of her and her gang. But the way he recited it, I could tell she worked with him personally until he had it perfect. It was very strange.”
“She needs your help.”
“The Mouse. We’re talking about my sister, The Mouse. The Mouse—the evil queen of all the night creatures and things crawling on two or four feet in the dark of the world. Help? Her?”
Sweets nodded. “She reached out through someone who would rather die than deal with her. You know that, and she knows you know that. That’s why she used him.”
Hooker knew Sweets’ injury was a give and take sort of thing. His sight had been taken from him. But in exchange, he had been blessed with an enhanced ability to remember every song, artist, producer, and other liner note information about music. But he had also been cursed or gifted with another kind of sight—he could ‘see’ images. Sometimes they were just wild extraneous stuff he couldn’t attach to anything or anyone. Other times, they were very vivid and exact, meaningless to Sweets, but important to the person in the vision.
“What did you see, Sweets?”
Sweets sat stoically and then washed his hands over his face as if to clear his vision. “It was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. She’s running here and there with her little dog. In the air, I could sense the dark bird or birds. They were chasing her. She knows they will kill her, but not yet. So she is searching for you...” He sat back in silence, his face blank. If he could see, Hooker would have said he was just staring.
“What else, Sweets?”
He slowly shook his head.
“What?”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
Sweets struggled. His voice was strained. “You had a big gun. A very big gun.”
“Betsy. My sawed-off twelve-gauge.”
Sweets thought a moment. “Maybe.”
“I protected her.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You shot her... and she smiled. Then the whole area just turned to flames and exploded.”
“You mean exploded and then turned to flames?”
“No. Everywhere was one big fireball… and then there was an explosion.” He leaned toward Hooker. Danny was frowning as he watched his brother. He had seen this intensity overcome Sweets before.
“I told you it didn’t make sense.”
Hooker shook his head. “No. What does not make sense is me shooting Sissy.”
Danny growled at Hooker. “I told you before not to call her by that name.”
Hooker ignored Danny’s anger.
“It’s what I saw. You shot them both, her and the dog. And she smiled when you did it. It was like a relief. You were setting her free.”
“Death is not freedom,” Hooker growled.
Danny growled reflectively. “It is to someone who is truly committing suicide.”