CHAPTER 32: BRAINSTORMING

The brain is a world consisting of a number of unexplored

continents and great stretches of unknown territory.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

The morning sun was shining through the window, sending dust motes sliding down long streams of light to my bedroom carpet. For a moment I watched their descent through a hazy, romantic vision of happiness with Dila Agbo, then tossed off the blankets and headed for the bathroom. I showered and shaved. I congratulated the person looking back at me from the bathroom mirror on a successful evening. In the past, success would have been measured by the presence of a warm female body lying next to me. But this morning I redefined my definition of success. It was a work in progress, I knew, but you had to put the car into drive before you could go anywhere. I started with the word friendship. Returning to my bedroom, I dressed, went to the kitchen, turned on Mr. Coffee, and retrieved my newspaper. While I drank, I scanned the front-page headlines:

Berserk Youth Slays Mother;

Reserves Get 24,500 Call-Up;

Johnson to Sign Rights Bill Today.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson was going to sign a civil rights bill that prohibited discrimination in housing sales. Dila would be thrilled. I felt like calling her, but she’d already be at work unless, like me, she’d slept in. I dialed her home number. No one answered. Calling her at work didn’t seem like a good idea.

Hi, can I speak to Dila Agbo?

Who’s calling?

Victor Brovelli.

Why you want to talk to one of our sisters, whitey?

That I imagined would be the dulcet voice of James the Ferocious. I had no desire to antagonize him. This whitey would wait to talk to her face to face in the evening after the make-up performance of Othello. No doubt Dila was current on all the latest political news anyway.

Time for work. I knotted the blue tie with red Gael insignias on it, slipped on my blue blazer and headed for the door. The Mustang was waiting for me at the starting line of a new day. According to the radio, the new day was partly cloudy with a chance of rain. On the way, I reviewed Dila’s suggestion to create a web of details based on Winona’s and Arabella’s murder. It was a good idea. Last night, I’d decided I was going to break my promise to Vincent and continue to help Sweets. Breaking a promise to my twin was not a good idea. On the other hand, we hadn’t had one of our knockdown, drag-out fights in a long time. I thought back to our last fight and couldn’t remember what it had been about and how long it lasted. In the Twin Ring, our fights always turned out to be draws. I did remember that our battles cleared the air between us, the way storms do after they blows through, leaving the skies blue and the air fresh. Yeah, and sometimes they leave a black eye or two and a couple of loose teeth.

Why was I breaking my promise to Vincent? The only answer I could come up with was that I’ve have always be stupidly stubborn, an opinion of myself that has been substantially and repeatedly proven in the past.

I got to work and parked. Vincent was standing in the middle of the lot surrounded by cars, gazing at them as if they were prize cattle he’d raised on his ranch. Sylvia was sitting at her desk. Vincent waved to me over. He was wearing his red tie with blue Gael insignias.

“We’ve lucked out for a couple of more cars,” he said. “Jitters got the word O’Keefe and Sons have also decided to move their dealership.”

“Like rats from a sinking ship,” I said.

“Whatever,” Vincent said. “The point is we have first dibs on their cars. You want to go or should I?”

“You got the ball rolling, bro, you go. I’ll take the lot.”

“The early bird, right? See you around noon.” He started walking, then stopped and turned around. “Oh, Sylvia says her Daddy’s got another car for her. Wants to know if she can take a couple of days off to go get it. You decide.”

“Not a problem.”

He took off, happy as an Italian who’d fallen into a barrel of Chianti. I’d completely forgotten to ask him how his wife was doing. But he was already behind the building out of sight. I heard his engine turn over and watched him drive off the lot.

In the office, Sylvia looked up from her desk and asked, “Interesting looking woman you were seen with last night, Vittorio?”

“You got someone following me, Sylvia, or what?”

“Or what,” she said. “Got a cousin tends bar at Vesuvio’s. He called me and said there was a guy who looked a lot like you having a drink with una donna nera.”

“I’m surprised your cousin didn’t say the N word.”

“Come on, Victor, when did you become so sensitive? I’m just asking. It’s strange times we’re living in. The coloreds are getting pretty damn restless.”

“Like the Injuns on the reservation, huh?”

“There you go again. You’re sounding awful liberal these days. You got to admit there are a lot of stirred up people.”

“Like our brother Mario and all his friends, is that what you mean?” I asked. Life in the Sixties was getting to me, getting to the entire country. It was like the country was suffering from a migraine.

“All right, point taken,” Sylvia said. “Let’s drop it okay. I don’t give a crap who you date. But aren’t you seeing some college sweetheart pretty steady?”

“Renee and I have an agreement,” I said. “And since you’re being such a Pinocchio, that was me having a drink with a black woman. And the night before, after her performance in Othello, we had dinner together at Ettore’s. You want to know what we ordered. I had. . .”

“Basta. No, I don’t want to know. Sorry I mentioned it. Hey, go have a drink, calm down, you ciuccio”

“Too early in the morning.” I was angry and tempted to tell Sylvia she’d have to wait to go to San Diego and pick up her damned car, but that would have only antagonized her more, and she seemed plenty on edge this morning. I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m calm, all right?” She gave me a tight smile. “Vincent says you’d like to go down to your daddy’s. How long will you be gone?”

“Yeah, Victor. Papa called and said there was a real nice Volkswagen Custom Van he’d let me have. It’s Easter weekend. I’d like to go to mass on Sunday with the folks. Be back on Monday. Is that okay?

“Go ahead,” I said. “Once Vincent comes back, you take off. We can handle the intake. Motor vehicles doesn’t open ‘till Monday anyway. Go, have a good time. Enjoy, all right?”

“Thanks, boss. Sorry I called you a ciuccio I’m sure your Negro woman is a lovely person.”

“The term is Black, not Negro. Negroid is a race. You don’t say I have a lot of Caucasian friends, do you? “What’s going on with you, Victor?”

“Nothing,” I said, wondering what in hell I was talking about. “Would you mind taking the lot for a while, while I’ll do some paperwork?

Once Sylvia left, I went to my desk. I began looking through my messages. There was a call from Carter Innis and a call from Pop. Sylvia had written urgent at the bottom of both messages. I had no desire to talk to Pop, but I needed to talk to Innis. I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes, trying to think. There was something bugging me, but I couldn’t figure out what it could be. Something odd that had to do with Sweets. I opened my eyes and stood up. I looked around the office hoping to trigger my memory. Nothing doing.

Through the door I saw Sylvia talking to Nick Parsegian next to a two-tone red and white 1961 Nash Metropolitan. The last time I’d talked to the Armenian, he was in the market for a small car for his daughter. I got into my salesman mode and went to greet him.

They were chatting about Winona, not the car. Parsegian nodded to me as I approached.

“We were just discussing that dear girl Winona.” Parsegian said. “How sad such a thing could happen. I was saying it was made more dreadful that she was changing her life, enrolled in Laney College.”

Sylvia was nodding in agreement. “She did good work for us.”

I could do without the subject, particularly since her ghost was standing only a few feet from us, an ethereal smile on her ghostly face. It was not cold, but I shuddered. I shook my head and Winona disappeared. I waited for a second, then changed the subject.

“Are you by any chance here to buy that car for your daughter?” I asked, pointing to the Nash. “You won’t find a safer car for her than this baby. I took it in on a ’66 Pontiac GTO. I don’t think the guy knew how good a shape the engine was in. You ask Jitters what he thinks. He tuned it.” Evoking the name of Jitters was a sure-fire selling point with all who knew the skills our mechanic possessed. In Parsegian’s case, it was definitely a plus. “It doesn’t have a lot of power, but you don’t want your daughter drag racing, right?” Parsegian looked horrified at the mention of drag racing. I’d made another sales hit, a palpable hit. I smiled, thinking that ever since I’d met Dila I was definitely into the Bard.

Sylvia left, leaving me alone to close the deal.

I gave Parsegian my rock-bottom price. He withdrew a notebook from his pocket and wrote the number down, with a promise to think about it.

Rather than have him walk off the lot, I lowered the price two hundred. The discount made an impression on him. Discounts are at the heart of his business. I went to the office and returned with the keys. He took the Nash for a spin, which I was sure would wind up at Jitter’s gas station for a Q & A. Sylvia poked her head out of the office door and asked was it a sale. I told her I figured it was. My instincts proved correct. After Parsegian drove back onto the lot, he asked for another hundred off. I stood my ground, but told him I’d pay the tax. He took out his checkbook. “My little princess will very much like this automobile,” he said. She was his princess all right. Her name was Marian and as far as I could tell, having only met her a few times, spoiled rotten. I sent Parsigian into the office to finish the paperwork and provide him with the opportunity to ogle Sylvia’s large jugs. A half hour later, a big smile on his face, he drove off the lot and across the street in the Nash, believing he’d managed to get a good deal out of this Brovelli Boy. Based on the Blue Book price for a Nash for this year and model, he had. But what he didn’t know was how much we bought the car for. It’s odd how salesmen are knowledgeable about their particular business, but are often ignorant of general sales principals when it comes to other businesses.

Sylvia stood at the office door, “Four big ones,” she said.

Vincent would be happy with the profit. I started walking around the lot in order to check our stock, but wound up considering Dila’s brainstorming suggestion. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try it out. I went to the office and left the door open, telling Sylvia to keep an eye out for customers. I placed a sheet of typing paper on my desk. Moving my chair to my left, so Sylvia couldn’t see what I was doing, I began, as Dila had instructed, by drawing a circle in the middle of the paper with the name Arabella in its center. Why Arabella and not Winona? I felt the most damaging evidence against Sweets had to do with Arabella’s murder. I stared at the name and the circle and the white empty space around it and concentrated. Details and names began to appear in their own gaskets extending out from the center. Let your mind go, Dila had instructed. Don’ think, just feel and write. By the time I was through, I had over twenty interconnected circles that actually looked more like a galaxies of planets than automobile gaskets.

“What you got there?”

I looked up at Sylvia standing behind me staring down.

“Nothing.”

“Looks like something to do with those murders to me.”

“Loose ends. Just trying to get everything straight.”

“I thought it was straight. Finito,” Sylvia said, her voice hardening. “Vincent will be furious if you change your mind.”

“Not to worry, cuz. I’m done with it.” To make my point I crumpled the paper into a ball and sunk a nice little hook shot into the wastebasket.

“Why should I worry? I’m not the one who messed up,” She asked, “I’m going for lunch, okay?”

“Yeah, go for it,” I said.

After Sylvia left, I reached into the wastebasket, removed my ball and flattened it out on the desk. I read what I’d written a couple of times, trying to do the free association thing, but came up with no new ideas, nor was I able to put a name to that irritating noise in my head. In fact, the more I looked at all of the details in their little planets, the more I knew there should be one more just beyond my understanding. If only I had some kind of interplanetary brain telescope. Damn, I balled the paper again and shot - air-ball. Screw it. I forced myself to think of last night with Dila. That did not take a great effort.

The phone rang. It was Vincent. O’Keefe had three more cars he was willing to get rid of, all primo automobiles, of which one was a 1956 DeSoto.

“And guess what, it has a Highway Hi-Fi unit in it.”

I could only imagine my brother’s excitement. In that year, Chrysler Motors had come out in some of their models with a record player mounted into the dash. It was not practical because you could only play seven-inch records made for Columbia Record Company. This car, Vincent explained came with a bunch of Broadway show tunes. Collectors would jump all over this car whatever its condition. The other two would earn us a decent profit even after factoring in Jitter’s bill. There was a risk in absorbing too much inventory. He agreed, but argued we’d never have such a chance again. If we couldn’t sell some of these cars fast, I warned him, we’d be up shit creek. I finally relented, when he reminded me that we were the Brovelli Boys, and standing back-to-back nobody could take us down. I’m a sucker for that kind of fraternal machismo. I said that I’d get a hold of the bank and for him to go for it. I hung up the phone.

The Brovelli Boys were on a roll. We were taking a financial plunge, pedal to the metal. We’d either crash or come blazing across the finish line, the checkered flag waving.

There is no accounting for how my twin and I were acting, suddenly willing to take risks with our business when we had only three weeks ago been terrified we would wind up bankrupt. It occurred to me that perhaps it was the craziness of the times that was emboldening us. I was suddenly feeling pretty dam confident that Brovelli Brothers’ Used Cars was on the highway to success. When Vincent got back we’d celebrate to our future.

Pappy Van Winkle here we come. The bottle stood proudly on the shelf behind Sylvia’s desk flanked by two glasses, one for me, one for Vincent. Sylvia didn’t drink whiskey. I took down the bottle, brought it to my desk and set it down, light from the window illuminating it. “Che cazzo,” I said, examining the bottle. The level of booze had dropped below our last marker. Eyeballing it, I couldn’t be sure, so I took a pencil off my desk and lowered it down then back slowly a number of times until the tip came up wet. Yep, definitely, somebody’d been doing some drinking. Since I knew I hadn’t been taking a nip, it had to be Vincent. Maybe his wife’s pregnancy was driving him to drink. I left the bottle on my desk for Vincent’s return. I stood in the open door looking out on the lot and imagining where we’d place the new cars. But my mind took me to Arabella’s murder. Ten minutes went by. I went back inside the office and retrieved my brainstorming out of the wastebasket. That paper so wrinkled now that I had trouble reading it. I worried over it for a while, but came up with zero. Dunked it back in the basket. “Mavaffancullo” I said.

“You know it’s against the law to swear in a foreign language.” Jay Ness said, stepping into the office.

“Gee, Jay, between you and Body, I’m surrounded by comedians. You here to see me or to check out Sylvia’s tits?”

“Take your mind out of the gutter, Victor. That woman doesn’t know how much I admire her mind. I’m considering proposing.”

“You better get in line. It’s common knowledge that Sunny Badger is about to pop the question.”

“That’s got to be a lie.”

“A fact, but I’m sure Sylvia would rather be the third Mrs. Jay Ness, than the first Mrs. Satan.”

“That hurts, Brovelli. No I’m not here to see Sylvia, although it crossed my mind. I’m here to thank you. The Fournier tip paid off big time. There sure was a drug connection.”

“They admitted to killing him?”

“Of course not. But we’ve got witnesses who saw Fournier arguing with a couple of Amigos. And one of our snitches confirmed it was about cocaine. So thank you, and my lieutenant thanks you. We might be able to solve a real homicide instead of spending all our days hauling in and booking hippies and black nationalists and commies and other dirt-bags for misdemeanor assault and batteries and other small-time criminalities.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, wondering if this helped Sweets or not. Was there any way to tie the gangster to Arabella’s murder, I wondered. I asked Jay.

“No connection between Arabella and Fournier that we can ascertain. Sweets’ counselor will certainly tie Fournier to Winona’s death, now that it’s proven he was in the area when it happened. And no doubt he’ll try to make the same case as it pertains to Arabella.”

“Any luck finding Winona’s diary?”

“Nothing, but if she’d written that many, she’d have to have stored them somewhere.”

At that moment Vincent walked in the door.

“What’s up, Jay?” he asked.

Jay said, “I was filling your brother in on the murder cases he’s been pretending to solve.

“No longer trying to solve, right, bro?”

Vincent was smiling, but the smile had a question mark at the end of it.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Wasn’t I just telling you, Jay that I’m out of the P.I. game? My exact words, right? Not my concern anymore.” Good old Jay, quick on the up-take nodded.

“That’s what he said to me, Vincent. He’s no longer in the P.I. business, much to the relief of the Oakland Police Department.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Vincent asked.

“On my honor, Vincent,” I said. My twin made a face at me like yeah, yeah, yeah.

“So what the hell were you talking about?” he asked.

Jay explained.

“Great. So, this gets Pop off our backs. We helped Sweets by helping the police. Now the police department is taking over. All’s well. We move on with our lives, right, Victor?”

“Yes siree. We’re moving on,” I said.

“Well, I’ll be moving on myself,” Jay said. “Anyone want to join me next door for chili and a brewsky?”

“Later,” I said. “We got some car business to discuss.”

As Jay left, Vincent placed his hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t lying were you, Victor. You’re no longer a P.I.?”

“Sul mio onore.”

“I don’t want to hear on your honor. In fact, I don’t want to hear the word honor for a long time, if ever again. You understand, Victor? There’s enough crap in the world and my life. Gloria is totally stressed over the baby. If she keeps eating everything in sight, she’ll turn into a Sumo Wrestler.

“You never told me,” I said.

“Not your problem, but remember the last time we were in Italy and mom’s aunt who looked like a beach ball. And pasta, pasta, pasta, every meal was some kind of pasta. That’s what my dear wife is going to look like if the baby doesn’t show up soon.”

I remembered mom’s aunt and nodded. Vincent sighed.

“You should see O’Keefe’s place,” he said, changing the subject. “The fire bomb gutted their showroom. Five of their cars were trashed. But we wound up with some great deals. We suddenly have a chance to come out of all this merda smelling like a rose. You can’t screw it up.”

“I’m not going to be a P.I. ever again, Vincent. That’s a promise.” I raised my hand like I was taking an oath.

“Meno male” Vincent said.

“Yeah,” I repeated, “Thank goodness.” I gave him a big smile and a double thumbs up.

“Now that’s straight,” Vincent said, “here are the invoices for the cars I bought at O’Keefe’s. He gave us a fleet deal and a little discount on top of it. You think we should call the bank?”

“What for? They’ve already raised our credit limit. We’re good to go.”

“Bene, Victor, bene. It’s time. We’ll toast to the Brovelli Boy’s Used Cars and toast to being our own men, not a slave to Pop’s screwed up notion of honor.”

“And toast to being free of Sweets,” I said, although I had my doubts.

“You can say that again,” Vincent said, stepping behind Sylvia’s desk and removing the bottle of whiskey from the shelf.

“Get the glasses,” he said, twisting the cap off the bottle.

I returned with two glasses. “Been doing some nipping on the sly, eh.” I said.

Victor look startled. “Not me. I know how much that bottle cost. I wasn’t about to drink without you.”

“Well, somebody had more than a nip. You think Sylvia’s is a secret tippler?”

“Nah,” Vincent said. “Vino only.”

“Could be a covering up an alcohol problem.” It was wrong the minute I said it.

“Who else has been in the office, lately, beside the three of us?”

“You mean someone who’d have the coglioni to drink our booze without asking us?”

We both said the name at the same time. “Sweets.”

“I’m going to kill the fucker,” I said.

“You may not have to. The state could do it for you.”

It wasn’t funny, but I started laughing. And is the case with twins, Vincent started laughing too.

“Well you two are in a good mood,” Sylvia said, walking into the office. She hung up her coat and purse. “What are we celebrating?”

Vincent explained. She gave a whoop.

I held up the bottle. “You know that fairytale about Little Red Ridinghood tasting the bear’s porridge, well we have our own little taster. Someone’s been tasting our whiskey, and we know who it is.”

“Don’t look at me, Victor.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, cuz. It’s that frigging Sweets.”

“You mean Sweets just came in the office and drank the Pappy Van Winkle your father gave you? When was that?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“I don’t let him near me, and I’m usually in the office.”

“Hell, Sylvia,” Vincent said. “You could have been running errands. I never pay much attention to Sweets the way you do. When he comes by I treat him like background noise.”

“It couldn’t have been recently,” I said. “He’s been in jail most of the time. Wait a minute. I sent him over here to get my car. Could he have snuck a taste then?”

“Let me think. Well, yeah, possibly,” Sylvia said. “He did hang out some, kept slurping on those candies and complaining you wouldn’t do the old freebee auto deal anymore.”

Vincent groaned. “You didn’t leave him alone in the office, did you?”

Sylvia’s head dropped a little. She looked up sheepishly. “I might have left him alone, maybe to go to the bathroom.”

“Anyway, it’s done,” I said. “I’ll take care of Sweets. Let’s have our toast and forget Birdman for one Goddamn minute of our lives.

Sylvia said, “I’ll join you.” She reached to the shelf and brought down a bottle of Chianti we kept for our lunches and another glass.

I poured Vincent and me a shot of whisky. Sylvia poured her wine. Before drinking, Vincent described the best cars out of the bunch he bought, all 1966 models: an olive-green Ford Fairlane; a Ford Galaxie; a maroon Pontiac Bonneville convertible and his piece de resistance, a Cadillac 75 limo that he got for two grand and would make us a fine profit. Not that there was a big market for limos, but at that price we couldn’t miss. Vincent had every right to be proud of himself. They were all fabulous buys and the prices were close to rock bottom, a testament to how badly O’Keefe wanted out of the neighborhood.

Not the Brovelli Boys, loyal to the neighborhood. Our glasses clinked in the air.

“To us,” Silvia said.

“To the Brovelli Boys,” Vincent and I said simultaneously.

“And to our future partnership,” Sylvia added with a grin.

“Stai sognando, cugino,” Vincent and I said together, which translates into you’re dreaming, cousin.