He mumbled, “Yes, you’re Rosetta?”
“Thass right—Sissur Rosetta.” There was something vaguely familiar about her, even in the gloom of Raponi’s darkest booth, something about her nose and her mouth and the determined set of her jaw, but Willow didn’t pin it down until the following afternoon. She shook off the proffered cigarette. “Doan smoke, thanks juss same. Sorry am got ass you come all this way, but this place convenyunn—live juss up on Aussin Bullvarr.”
Willow said, “No difficulty—I’ve been coming to Raponi’s for years.” He looked her over. She was pushing hell out of fifty, a heavy-busted, beetle-browed, coarse woman with crinkles at her eyes, gashlike furrows at the corners of her mouth, and an armor plating of pancake makeup that failed to hide her years. Her nun’s habit was badly rumpled; there was a smear of mustard on her left sleeve and smudges of ketchup on her black gloves. She’d been through the mill, probably several times, an aging nun out on a mild bender, and Willow saw nothing wrong with that—even nuns enjoy a few pops now and then, it was a sign of the times—you’ve come a long way, Sister.
She was peering at him through slightly tinted, heavy-rimmed spectacles, her eyes dull, blinking, bloodshot. She said, “Missur Willur, am afray am got promlum—goddam big promlum.”
Willow smiled. “Well, Sister, it won’t be with cold weather—finish that one and you’ll be good for sixty below.”
Sister Rosetta raised an unsteady warning finger. “Now, doan you be no wiseass—one thing am can’t stann is wiseass!”
Willow said, “Just kidding, Sister.”
She leaned forward in the booth. “Am think mime niece is in some kine trubbul.”
“Then you don’t have the problem—your niece has the problem.”
She drew herself up haughtily, like a hen over a clutch of eggs. “My niece promlums mime premiums too also. You probly never have no kids, right?” When Willow shrugged she said, “Not bess you knowledge, anyway.” It was an acid tack-on but accurate in essence.
Willow said, “Tell me about your niece, Sister Rosetta.”
“Oh, gorjuss girl, simple gorjuss!” A tear wriggled through Sister Rosetta’s mascara like a gray cat squeezing through a black picket fence, etching a trail in her pancake makeup. “Mime sissur’s only child—mime sissur widow.”
“Too bad.”
“Not at all. Husbunn was bassard—real prick.”
For a nun, Sister Rosetta had a way with words. Maybe the older ones got that way. Willow said, “About your niece, Sister.”
She was studying him. “You no doubt male pig shauvnuss, am bet.”
Willow shook his head. “Male Republican.”
“Same diffurnce—piss on ole Ronull Raygun.”
Willow scowled, wishing to Christ that the churches would stay the hell out of politics and get back to doing whatever they were supposed to be doing. He said, “Your niece, if you will, Sister Rosetta.”
“Whabout mime niece?”
“Right!”
“Doan know.”
“And that’s why you called me?”
“Hey, you very clever fella, Missur Willur!”
“Where is your niece?”
“Gone.”
“Well, that’s a beginning. Gone how—eloped with the mail man, kidnapped by gypsies, ran away with the circus—what?”
“Beats shit outta me.”
“She’s just gone?”
“Gone as hell.”
“What about her clothing?”
“Oh, ekspensive—goddam near all Marshull Feels stuff!”
“Uhh-h-h, what I meant was, did she take her clothing when she left?”
“Most—leff few things.”
“Why haven’t you tried Missing Persons?”
“Whaffor? She not missing.”
“She’s gone but she isn’t missing—let me consider that for just a moment.”
“She’s call on phone but woan tell new address.”
“Then she doesn’t want you to know where she is.”
“By God, you surtnul excellnut detekuv!”
“You fear for your niece’s safety?”
“Ezzackly.” She tilted her glass and wiped out her drink. An ice cube tumbled into her lap and she brushed it to the floor. She said, “Slippery li’l bassard.”
Willow sighed. “When did she leave?”
“Couple month, mamey three—hey, you got ’nother screwdrafter?”
“I believe that’s a vodka collins, Sister Rosetta.”
“Thass okay.”
Willow grabbed her glass and went to the bar, shaking his head. Raponi put down the telephone to mix the drink. He whispered, “Got Dom Palumbo on the horn—hotshot hitman outta Detroit—gonna be in town shortly—real big job.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Yeah, me and Dom go way back.”
Willow returned to the booth with the vodka collins. Sister Rosetta jerked the straw, pitched it into the ashtray, and raised the glass to drink noisily. Willow said, “Did you and your niece have a falling out?”
“Never harsh word.”
“That’s nice—you lived with her, I assume.”
“Juss temperarlily, sort of.”
Willow nodded. That explained it. The old dragon was probably drunk around the calendar, and her niece had enjoyed as much of it as she could stand. He said, “When will you be returning to your duties at the convent, or the church, or the school, or wherever?”
“Probly ’bout same time am get there.”
Well, that took care of that—mind your own business, Willow. He said, “Could your niece have been involved with a man?”
Sister Rosetta stifled a yawn with a black-gloved hand. “Oh, sure.”
“Who is he?”
“How hell am know whom is he? Hey, am here imform you mime sissur diddun raise no goddam lesbian!”
“Your niece like men?”
“Cows like corn?”
“Perhaps she found a different type of man.”
“Perhaps Genghis Khan belong Royal Order Mooses.”
“Don’t waste the punchline, Sister Rosetta.”
“Okay, ain’t no diffurn type.”
“She’s tried them all?”
“Ever damn one. Gladys doan let no moss grow unner her keester.”
“‘Gladys,’ did you say?”
“Yes, on amcounn thass her name—Gladys—Gladys Hornsby.”
Willow was silent through a few heartbeats. “Has Gladys Hornsby ever been married?”
“Why buy the bull when shit’s so cheap?”
“Okay, so you want to know where she’s living. Why?”
“Case ’mergency—she my niece, ain’t I?”
“What about her mother?”
“I give up—whabout her?”
“Maybe Gladys is with her.”
“Hope not—she dead.”
“Gladys has a job?”
“Model—good model—bess damn model whole city Chicago.”
“Well, if she’s a model, finding her shouldn’t be difficult. What agency does she work out of?”
“Doan got no more ajunn.”
“She had one earlier?”
“Fired him.”
“For what reason?”
“Ten percenn.”
“Who was he?”
“Brimstone or something—Ramdolph or could been Momroe.”
“That’s Randolph Brimstone or Monroe Brimstone?”
“Thass Ramdolph Street or Momroe Street—hey, how long you live Chicago?”
Willow exhaled audibly. “What does Gladys model?”
“Whatcha got? Any damn thing—bras, panties, swimsuits.”
“Modeling is the extent of her activities?”
Sister Rosetta stared at him. “Missur Willur, you got disgussingly filthy mine, but very prakkikul, am sure.”
“I was speaking of acting—sometimes models dabble in acting.”
Sister Rosetta shrugged. “Look, how much money locate mime niece?”
“I get two hundred a day, four hundred minimum, and I absorb routine expenses. I’ll want the four in advance, a picture of Gladys Hornsby, and your address and telephone number. Can you handle that?” Two more Kennessy’s Light Lagers and there’d be less than thirty dollars standing between Willow and a train robbery—still he was hoping that she’d balk at the price.
She didn’t blink. She fumbled her way into a black plastic purse the size of a basketball and produced a quarter-page tom from a Malibu Fashions catalogue. Willow studied a picture of a slender, smoky blue-eyed creature with short honey-blonde hair, a pensive faraway smile, pert full breasts, and a set of legs that would have kicked off a three-day shootout in a Jesuit monastery. She was almost wearing a two-hundred-dollar purple-on-black swimsuit that could have been stuffed into a thimble. Willow tucked the picture into his wallet along with four crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and a typewritten scrap of paper bearing Sister Rosetta’s address. He’d glanced at the paper and said, “No phone?”
“Disconnek. Am be in touch on you, doan worry.”
“But you’ve said that your niece calls you. How does she accomplish that?”
“Call Webster’s Whirlwind, call Millie and Jake’s, call Bobo’s Dugout, call Mary’s Piano Bar, call—”
Willow broke in on her. “No matter, I’ll be on this late tomorrow morning.”
Sister Rosetta bristled. “How come late? How come not early? Early bird catch worm!”
“Yes, but the big possums walk late. Want another drink?”
She mopped her mouth with the back of a gloved hand. “Hey, one more drink and am take you home, show you where bear burped in brickyard.”
Willow didn’t know exactly what she meant by that, but he’d taken enough chances for one day. He said, “I’ll take a raincheck.”
She rose unsteadily to teeter above him. She patted him on the head, one of those good-old-Rover pats, and she lurched toward the door, pursuing a perilously circuitous route, her heavy purse banging like a wrecking ball against walls and barstools. Willow watched her go out, an aging, hopeless lush who’d probably gotten hooked on sacramental wine during her novitiate days. She was a pain in the ass, but she came out swinging and Willow liked that.