The THING from the IDOL-HEAD of DIABOLU caused me to lose my Martian powers and has turned my pal, ZOOK, into a destructive giant!
Freddy’s new tie looked like a baseball bat. The pattern was wood grain, the tip squared off like the end of a Louisville Slugger, and the Minnesota Twins M logo was imprinted on the sweet spot. Freddy couldn’t keep his hands off it. A gift from his new friend, Rich.
Wicky watched him fingering the Twins logo with his greasy, sausage-size fingers and said, “Good thing about polyester, Fred, you can throw it right in the washing machine.” He cut another slice of pepperoni pizza and offered it to Freddy, who had already finished the other pizza—hamburger and hot peppers—all by himself. They were sitting on the balcony of Wicky’s condo, enjoying an early dinner. Wicky liked Freddy Wisnesky. He was like a dog—big, dumb, and vicious.
“Thanks”—Freddy belched—”Rich.”
“You’re welcome. You want another beer?”
“Sure.”
Wicky went to the refrigerator and grabbed two more Mooseheads. He noticed that the cat’s water dish was empty. He never saw the cat anymore; it had found a hiding place somewhere, under something or behind something. Wicky was mildly curious, but not curious enough to search. All he knew was that when he put food in the bowl it would eventually disappear. He opened the botdes, poured a few ounces from one of them into the water dish, and brought them back out onto the balcony. Sated with beer and pizza, Freddy was spacing out, staring sightlessly to the south, his mouth slack. Dickie set the beer beside the pizza boxes.
“You want to go see another game next week? The White Sox’ll be in town. Your hometown team, huh?”
Freddy returned to planet Earth. “I come from Terre Haute,” he said.
“Yeah, well, Terre Haute don’t have a franchise, so you might as well go with the Sox. You could do worse. Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a favor, Fred.”
“Sure.”
“You know those two guys you’ve been looking for?”
Freddy nodded.
“I think I know how we can find them.”
“Where?” said Freddy.
“I'm not sure yet. But when we find them, what I want is, I want you to hold off doing anything for a while.”
“I have to take care of Mister C.’s business,” Freddy said, his brow knotting at the prospect of conflicting orders.
“I know you do, and I'm going to help you find them so you can do that. But I have some business with them first. I have to take care of my business, then we can take care of Joey C.’s business. You’ve been trying to find them for weeks. All I'm asking is that once we find them you hold off until they find a buyer for my comic books.”
“I dunno,” Freddy said. He liked his new friend, Rich, but Mister C. was his boss.
“It’s a win-win deal, Fred. I get what I want, and Mister C. gets what he wants. Everybody’s happy.”
“I gotta ask Mister C.”
“Fine. Call him up. But wouldn’t you rather wait a few days, then call him up and tell him you’ve got the job done? You call him up now, he’s just going to yell at you like he did last time. Why upset him? Hold off a few days, Fred, then call and give him the good news.”
Freddy felt Wicky’s words on his mind like a barber’s fingers giving him a scalp massage. It felt good to have somebody he liked telling him what to do. He liked it when Wicky called him “Fred.” It was better than Freddy, which made him sound like a little kid, and it was a lot better than “Dipshit,” which was what Mister C. had called him during their most recent conversation.
Wicky was still talking. Freddy tuned in.
“…so what I want is for you to be my personal secretary for a few days—”
“Personal what?”
“Personal secretary. It means you just sort of hang out with me, like a buddy. And if anybody gives us any trouble, you break their arm.”
Freddy brightened. “Sure,” he said. “I guess that would be okay.”
Catfish Wicky lit a cigarette and blew a geyser of blue smoke at the ceiling. Her eyes were bright, her mouth soft and satisfied. As she watched the plume of smoke break apart on the white acoustic tiles, her mouth curved into a broad smile. She said, “You realize, of course, that we're going to have to give Dickie back his ten thousand.”
She turned her head to look at Tom Campo, and both of them burst into laughter, hers throaty and deep, his more like the nervous yipping of a terrier.
“Do you think he’s for real?” Tommy asked after he stopped laughing.
“With this comic thing? Probably. You know, he really believed in you all. I still can’t hardly believe it. I mean, I thought when I introduced you guys that he understood that the fund was for selling, not for buying.”
“A good salesman buys his own line,” Tommy said. “Never fails.”
“That sounds like something Ben would say.”
“It is. He says it all the time. I get pretty sick of it, all the things he likes to say. Hey, how about we call room service and get us some food. My stomach is going, 'Feed me.' “
Catfish reached for the phone on the end table, punched in the number for room service, and handed him the phone. She smoked her cigarette and watched him order sandwiches, beer, coffee, pie, and milk. “You want anything?” he asked. She shook her head.
“I don’t think Ben likes me,” she said.
“Ben thinks you just like to stir things up. Hell, he don’t like anybody, when it comes right down to it. I think he’s got some kind of mental problem. All he likes to do is play the ponies. It’s like he’s got no pulse. If he wins or loses, it’s the same. And he doesn’t trust anybody.”
“Except you.”
“Except me, right.”
“So what are you all planning to do about Dickie?”
“Ben says find out if this comic deal of his is for real. Then we’ll take it from there.”
“You going to give him the fund like he wants? And loan him the money?”
Tommy shrugged. “That’s what Ben wants to do. He says the fund is history, says we can’t milk it no more. He thinks we can do this last deal and come out of it looking good. We put up the cash, sell the collection fast, maybe sell it to Kansas City Walt, and move on.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I don’t know. Ben is usually right. What d'you think?”
“I think Benny is getting too set in his ways, that’s what I think.”
When the food arrived, Catfish took the blueberry pie.
“I thought you didn’t want anything,” Tommy complained.
She forked a piece into her mouth. “I didn’t know it would look this good. Can I have some of your milk?”
The 7:00 p.m. flight to O'Hare cost Crow $321 out of Zink’s ten thousand, but it was far better than spending eight hours on 1-90 getting his ass massaged in Sam’s truck. Just driving it to the airport had been an ordeal.
As always, O'Hare was efficient, impossible, and utterly disorienting. It took him half an hour to find Debrowski, and even then he probably wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t been arguing with a young, efficient-looking airport cop. Her rented Lincoln was parked in a Loading and Unloading Only zone, a situation to which the cop was taking justifiable exception. Debrowski’s voice was distinctive. Crow walked quickly down the sidewalk, hoping to intercede before she climbed out of the car and punched the poor guy. He threw his briefcase—a battered vinyl Samsonite—into the back seat and got into the car with an apologetic shrug to the cop.
“Let’s go, before he decides to tag us.”
She fluttered her made-up eyes at him and banged down the accelerator. The cop hopped back up on the curb to get out of the way.
“What was that all about?”
Debrowski laughed. “I guess I have a problem with guys in uniform.” She was wearing nylons and heels, and a green dress that might have looked natural on Vanna White. Big white bow on the front, like a birthday present.
“How do you make your hair do that?” Crow asked. Her hair had expanded. Her face seemed to be peeking out of a big blond ball.
“It’s a wig, Crow. Aren’t I beautiful?”
“Lovely.”
“Chrissy has hair like this, only hers is real. It gave us a jumping- off point when I first met her. A woman like that, you always start out talking hair. You think Joey Cadillac is going to remember me?”
“Is it worth the risk? I don’t like the idea of him seeing you, no matter how much hair you’ve got on your head. Your lip looks like it’s healing up.”
“Makeup, Crow. You can do anything with enough foundation.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I never got to play Barbie when I was growing up. Don’t worry about it, Crow. There’s no way he’s going to recognize me. Do I look like Debrowski the chain-swinging biker bitch to you?”
“You look like a mannequin.”
“Thank you! You’re looking pretty ornamental yourself there, Crow.”
Crow wore a lightweight buff-colored silk jacket, big shoulders, over a blue-striped cotton dress shirt. His navy linen trousers were already hopelessly wrinkled, which was why he never wore the things, but they looked expensive. With his faux-crocodile loafers and the fake Rolex watch, he looked, in a casual way, like a guy that might actually have some loose money.
“The traffic is intense, Crow. We're going to be a little late; it’s after eight already.”
“That’s good,” said Crow. “Late is good.”
During the drive to Chrissy Swenson’s condo, she filled him in on what she had learned. Crow listened, watching her drive the Lincoln, admiring the way she attacked the Chicago traffic, one hand on the horn, the other spinning the big steering wheel, moving in and out of lanes as skillfully as any cabbie.
“You think the other players are legit guys?” Crow asked.
“As far as I can tell, except for Jimmy Spencer. According to Chrissy, who doesn’t like him much, he runs a chop shop for Joey C. Joey likes to economize on his parts cost. She says Spencer almost always wins, but not big. But it sounds like a fairly straight card game. She says Joey usually wins big, but not always. Thor Kjellgard and Joey’s cousin Tony—the guy who owns the restaurant where I met Chrissy—are both surefire losers. Wexler, the alderman, usually drops a few thousand. Chrissy’s really looking forward to this.”
“So we're all set, then.”
“Barring complications, I’d say yes. How are you feeling?”
Crow considered. “Tired and hungry. Just right for poker.”
Joey was in an expansive, back-slapping mood, which meant that every time he got within five feet of her he wanted a little kiss and a squeeze. Chrissy didn’t mind that so much, but she hated the winking and tongue wiggles he gave to the other players after each brief ta- bleside encounter. She spent as much time as possible clinking things around in the kitchen, staying out of range, waiting for the game to get serious so he’d forget about her. She wished Laura would hurry up and get there.
Joey was telling the guys the burglar-eaten-by-dogs story.
The first time Chrissy had heard the burglar story, it had gone something like this: One night a fourteen-year-old kid decided to climb the fence at J.C. Motors, apparently with the idea of boosting a few CD players. Unfortunately for the would-be thief, Joey C. had a contract with K-9 Patrol Services, and a pair of Rottweilers were on the job. When the K-9 people showed up at six-thirty the next morning to pick up the dogs, they found the terrified kid wrapped around a drainpipe twelve feet up the wall of the office building. The two Rotts were standing at attention below, growling and snarling, as they had been for over four hours. When the cops showed up, and later the ambulance, they had to dislocate two of the kid’s fingers to get him down off the drainpipe. He was missing about eight ounces of flesh from his butt and upper thigh, enough for two small breakfast steaks.
Joey had told her that version of the story the night after it happened, almost a year ago. At that time, he had told her that the young burglar had been taken to the hospital and survived with no more to show for his ordeal than a slight limp and a horror of all brown-and-
black dogs. Since then, she had watched the tale evolve.
“So I get to work—I like to get in early, y'know—and these two Rotts, supposed to be guarding the place, they're all laid out on the ground, fast asleep, bellies bulging like a couple cooked sausages.” Joey grabbed a handful of peanuts from the dish at his elbow, threw a few into his mouth, and bit down on them, looking from face to face. Kjellgard and Spence had heard the story before and were wearing neutral expressions. Cousin Tony and Wexler the alderman were leaning forward, listening with some interest. It was Joey’s turn to deal, and there would be no more cards until he finished telling his tale. He washed the peanuts down with his Remy and diet Coke, then continued his story.
“So I'm thinking, I'm gonna have to get myself a new guard dog service. These mutts couldn’t protect this place from a damn rat. Then I notice this big stain on my driveway. I go, What the fuck? I think its tranny fluid at first, 'cause it’s sort of pink and red, and then I take another look at these two dogs, all bloody on their faces, and I think, These fucking mutts have killed themselves a cat or something, y'know? So I give one of them a kick on account of I'm pissed, getting my driveway all messed up like that. Dog jumps up and starts doing that hunching thing dogs do when they're gonna puke, then he blows breakfast all over the place.” Something about the image of dogs vomiting made Joey laugh. Cousin Tony politely joined in.
“I'm going, What the fuck? What the fuck are these fucking dogs doing to my fucking driveway?” He opened his eyes as wide as possible and looked from face to face, demanding reaction from each of them. When he was satisfied that everyone at the table appreciated his dilemma, he went for the big finish. Chrissy sat up and paid attention here, repelled but curious to see how Joey was going to end it this time.
“So I look down at this pile of vomit, and I see something sitting right on top. I just about lost my own breakfast right there, damn near barfed my eggs Benedict all over my fucking shoes!”
Again he laughed, looking around the table.
“It was a fucking nigger dick! Turned out some black kid jumped the fence, and these Rotts, they're big dogs, they ate the fucker, bones and all.”
“They ate everything?” cousin Tony asked. Tony was in the restaurant business.
“Yeah. Bones and all. So when K-9 came around to pick up the dogs, I told them they owed me a discount, on account of they wouldn’t have to feed 'em for a couple days.”
Chrissy had to leave the room. She was ready to talk Technicolor herself. Every time Joey told the story, a different body part was upchucked, but it was always a nigger toe, or a nigger ear, or a nigger finger.
When she came back to the room, Joey was dealing a hand of five- card draw, a freshly lit Davidoff clenched in his teeth. Chrissy took her position at his elbow and watched, waiting for the next player to demand a drink, or more chips, or a quick neck massage. It was going to be a long, smoky night. She thought about her bank account, about the thirty thousand she had socked away, thinking about making it forty or fifty thousand, thinking she could then afford to move on to another guy. The phone rang. She picked it up.
“Yes?” A smile spread across her face. “Sure, Cal. You send them right on up. Thanks.”
She turned to Joey, who was looking at her with raised eyebrows. “Your other player is here,” she said.