Hooker found Manny in his office. The large professional headphones covered the sides of his head. He was humming with the music and staring at the boards. The man was most alive when there was a problem in front of him to solve. Murder was the ultimate problem. Manny was at his best. He was at his most aware. It was as if every one of his senses was on hyper-overdrive.
Manny raised his right hand and then raised his index finger. Without turning around to see who was in the doorway, he called out loudly over the music only he could hear, “I figured out Fox’s Eve.”
Stella came up behind Hooker as he stood in the office doorway. Hooker turned to her. “How does he do that?”
She shrugged. “One of life’s little Manny mysteries. You need anything to eat or drink?”
He smiled and shook his head. She knew where he had been. He was more ready for a nap. Instead, he walked over to the oversized black walnut desk. He sat on the corner and waited.
Manny took off his headphones. “How was breakfast with the Sweets?”
“Good. Disturbing.”
The man thought about the dichotomy. “Yeah, I guess it can happen with them. I can imagine the good. What was disturbing?”
“Danny talked straight for almost five minutes. It had to be over a few hundred words.”
The man did not laugh. He grabbed his pursed lips, and his eyes roamed about the desk and walls. “He’s worried about something. Did he say anything?”
“Sweets did. It was about some ass-jerk engineer at the radio station. Danny overheard the guy say the reason Danny didn’t say much was because he wasn’t smart enough to have anything to say. I just made it worse because I teased him by asking if someone had bumped up his daily word allowance.”
“I thought you said he had run his mouth for five minutes.”
“He ran his mouth after I had teased him.”
“If he was pissed off, why was he talking? I would think he would just clam up for a few days.”
“He did. He was in the other room reading Plato’s The Cave. I recognized the book. It should be right there in the hole in your shelf.”
Manny glanced over at the large bookshelf with the four holes. “Hmm, I would have thought he would have read the Dostoyevsky first. Interesting... So what was the long speech about?”
“I asked why they called Sweets ‘Sweets’ when they are all Sweets.” Hooker’s eyes went up. “Yeah, it does sound silly when I put it that way.”
“So why was Danny elected to be the mouthpiece?”
“He was the only one who could talk. I thought Sweets and Tilly were going to just blow gaskets right there from laughing so hard. I guess they thought maybe I knew.”
“...about Danny marching Wanda Cutter backward down the hall?” Manny and Stella both chuckled.
“Now, there is an image.” Hooker now had confirmation on his guess at it being Nurse Cutter. “A destroyer backing an aircraft carrier back across the ocean.”
“I don’t think even your Uncle Willie would have the balls to back-march Dolly or even Stella, much less Wanda Cutter.”
Hooker laughed. “Oh, he has the balls. He’s just not stupid.” Hooker jabbed his finger at Manny. “You know, when I was on the third floor, and they would come to visit, I thought it was kind of strange Nurse Wanda ‘I rule the world’ Cutter would all but disappear.”
Manny stroked his pursed lips and chuckled at the thought of her giving anyone a wide berth.
Stella rolled her head and leaned her hip against the door. Both men knew this was her giveaway tell she was going to stir up some fun stuff. “You know why they built Good Sam, don’t you?”
“Because they needed another hospital?”
“No, silly. It was because they needed at least two miles of turf to separate Wanda and Connie.” She was referring to the other strong nurse in the San Jose area who ruled the Valley Medical Center from her glass booth overlooking the emergency room—the place everyone joked was Hooker’s second home.
They all laughed and then thought about what it would be like having the two domineering women running a hospital from the ground and third floors. The mental image made them laugh even harder.
Hooker shifted and stood.
“Well, it’s been fun, but I need some aspirin and a nap. I’ll talk to you in a few hours at dinner.”
Manny hid his smile. “Sure thing, kid. I’ll wake you when it’s time.” He silently counted three. “Oh, Hooker?”
The mop of curly black hair and droopy eyes looked back around the corner. “Yeah, Manny?”
“Have you ever heard the song... and I can’t think of how the music goes... but the words are something like: The fox went out on a chilly night. Prayed to the moon to give her light. Many a mile to go that night, before she reached the town-o, town-o, town-o. Many a mile to go that night before she reached the town-o.”
Hooker frowned, thinking.
“Heard it before?”
Hooker thought blurrily. Shaking his head, “No, Manny, I haven’t. Why do you ask?”
Manny waved his hand. “Nothing kid. Just thinking... Enjoy your nap.”
He listened to the kid pad his way down the hall. Stella watched from the door. There was a muted conversation with Box, and then the silence. The man smiled and noted the time.
“That was evil, Manny Romero.” Stella pushed off the door and headed for the kitchen. “I’m proud of you,” she added with an evil smile. The constant take-no-prisoners and give-no-ground approach kept everyone in the family on their toes. It was refined to a very high and talented game. Most days, Manny was the Master, with Stella and her sister not far behind. If anyone were close to Manny, it would be Dolly—she practiced the game deftly with those who were in charge of her city.
The house settled into silence as Stella leaned over the island, sipping coffee, and reading the paper. This was her time of the year to scour the want ads for used canning jars for sale. One year she wrote directly to the Ball jar company, but the closest they could come to the prices she normally paid was a small discount off what the large chain supermarkets paid. Most of what she acquired was paid for in canned fruit or vegetables.
Manny opened one of the books he was currently reading. He had started back through the classics written in the nineteenth century. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of four books he was dipping into, back and forth. Keeping the four-complex story-lines straight was his defense against boredom.
Manny looked at the clock when he heard the scream.
“Holy Chry... Sothamnus Nauseosa... on the desert floor!”
Manny smiled, twenty-eight minutes. Good recovery too... The Latin name for rabbit brush. The kid might have even hit REM sleep before the bomb hit his subconscious. He slipped the headphones back over his ears and chuckled. Some days he just loved being an evil man.
Hooker slid to a stop when his shoulder hit the doorjamb. “Damn it all, Manny, that was not nice.”
He strode into the office in only his boxers and socks. “And knock it off. I know you can hear me. The tape isn’t even running.”
Manny swore under his breath. He knew he should have turned the reel-to-reel back on. It was obvious when the huge professional twelve-inch reels were moving. He looked up at the young man as he chuckled. Hooker was now very much awake.
“Yes. It was a nursery rhyme or something. She sang it to me when I was a kid.”
“Full moon is Tuesday.”
“I’ve got to call Willie.”
Manny raised his open hand. “Telstar crosses Sirius every seventeen days in its orbit. The next from our point of view is Sunday morning at 1:17.”
Hooker slumped back against the desk cursing. “Beans and wienies!”
The man in the wheelchair echoed him. “Correct, the pooch is fucked.”
“She told us when. She even told us who... or what she will look like. But she held back the where.” The two men thought about what all those points meant. “She did not intend for us to stop the kill, just to know she has the inside track on everything. Whatever she wants will be huge.”
Hooker had grown up in seven foster homes with her. She had run away for good on her sixteenth birthday.
The foster parents had decided to have some fun with her for her birthday. The mother held her down while the father raped her front, top, and back. When they were finished with their fun, they turned her over to their mentally challenged adult son who was more violent and sexually sadistic than they were.
This was not the first time she had been abused in the homes. However, when it started, she knew this time, it was up to her to make it the last time.
During the exchange of the prisoner, she had made an escape, taking her to the sanctuary of the kitchen. She had started on the dim-witted son with a paring knife. As he sprawled screaming and bleeding from multiple minor cuts to the face and hands, she turned on the parents. The father had suffered the most with slashes to his crotch and face. The mother received only minor but painful cuts to her breasts.
Four months later, when they began to take their anger out on a thirteen-year-old Hooker, he finished what his sister had started. After no charges were filed, and during a transfer to a new home four states away, Hooker lifted the wallet out of the purse of the woman transporting the poor child and disappeared from the Greyhound station. Later, through some research about the homes they had been in, they realized he and his sister had always been sold to the next home. It had been a secret network of pedophiles and sadists. To Hooker’s horror, he discovered the sexual abuse of his sister had been going on for many years and homes since she was nine.
Finding her had only been a matter of walking out of the bus station. She was waiting with a few new friends in the shadows. If he had gotten on the bus with the woman like planned—it would have been the end of their family.
Three months later, they had wound up in San Jose and were separated. She kept to the streets and the night, and Hooker had found Uncle Willie’s car.
She had taught Hooker the power of the underground or street telephone, the passing of information from one denizen of the night to another—from the bum on the corner to the alcoholic in the alley. As their worlds separated with time, there was still a connection. They each knew they could somehow send a message to the other.
Just as she ruled a tribe of the creatures of the night, Hooker also knew and used the powerful tools of knowledge flowing openly in the street. For Hooker, it could be as simple as knowing where a derelict car was parked—no longer good for sleeping in. But on a more personal level, it was his lifeline to the only sister he had—even if she was not blood-related.
He looked at Manny leaning back in his chair, studying him. “What?”
“Care to share?”
“Share what?”
“You’ve been gone off into that head of yours for the last ten minutes.”
“I was thinking about Sissy.” He caught himself. He could hear Danny yelling at him to stop calling her childhood name. It was a name of derision, not just what a little boy calls his older sister. “... The Mouse.”
“What about her?”
“She wants something. And if Sweets is correct, I’m not going to like it.” He told Manny about Sweets’ vision. Stella wandered back into the room with mugs of fresh coffee.
The two parents listened as their kid peeled the onion of his knowledge and of his pain. There can be no harder job than to be a parent who can’t fix the tough boo-boos in life. Manny and Stella could only sit and listen and watch the slow train-wreck as it happened.
The afternoon sun lay slanted along the floors.
“Do you think there’s any chance what Sweets saw could have been misinterpreted? I mean, he might have seen one thing and thought it was something else?”
Hooker pushed at the last bite of the afternoon snack. They had been talking for hours—over and over, all about the same things. They had looked from this angle or that. His eyes were blurry as he looked at his plate, but his focus was miles away. He was trying once again to read his sister’s mind. Something they had laughed about as children—their ability to know what the other was thinking, without verbal communication.
“It’s not how Sweets operates. He describes exactly what he is seeing. He can’t interpret it, so he just describes the pictures. It’s always as if his is in a museum or looking at National Geographic or Life. There are pictures in front of him, and he will tell you what he sees in detail. But he doesn’t know it’s a cow or car or building.” Hooker looked up. “I guess he does know what things are and look like, but he saw a whole lot of flames as the world blew up. However, there is no perspective. If I were Box and sat next to the fireplace in there, it would be a big fire. Nevertheless, for us, and many feet away, it’s just a fire in the fireplace. So he does not know if it’s a campfire, a bonfire, or half of San Jose blowing up. He just doesn’t know.”
Manny moved his index finger along the grain of the table. His focus was closer and farther than Hooker’s. “Let’s hope it’s just a campfire.”
Stella cleared her throat but still croaked her words. “But he saw you shoot your sister.”
Hooker slumped and nodded. “That’s the part that scares me. He does know what that would look like.”
“No doubt...”
“He was very clear about it—right down to my shotgun.”
A heavy silence hung in the air. They were all talked out. It was now time to realize it and do something about it.
Stella watched as Hooker’s jaw slid open and his head hung lower. The soft snoring sound effects were supplied by her husband. If she hadn’t been so tired, it would have been funny.
Her chair purposely scraped, and the men jerked. Without spoken directions, plates were cleared, and the three headed for their respective beds.
The warm afternoon sun slanted across the dark slate floor. In the center of the warmest part, there was no cat to soak up the heat.
Life was twisting.