CHAPTER 2: SWEETS

The Other Dude Did It

Ten minutes later I was parked in front of Lenny’s Breakfast Grill listening to KNBR FM. The Beatles were singing “Hey Jude” about not letting him down. Music usually helped me relax. Not today. It was Friday. I decided from now on I’d hate Fridays.

Through my rear-view mirror, I saw a motorcycle pull in, and Sweets get off. Sweets is about my height but a lot skinnier than me. His skin’s the color of cocoa and his hair is bottle-blonde, a portion of which stands up on the crown of his head like the top feathers of a cockatoo. His eyes are deep set and green. It’s hard to gauge Sweets’ age. He says he’s thirty, but he’s a lot like an impressionist painting; understandable from a distance, but up close it gets fuzzy, so I’d put Sweets’ age somewhere in the forties. He wears lots of jewelry, except when he’s breaking into houses. His clothes are always a size too small and an eclectic mix of colors and styles, none of which I’ve ever seen worn by another human being, as if they’d been designed by someone from a different galaxy. He talks like a surfer and walks like a hipster. His impish smile saves him from looking like a lunatic. Sweets grew up in Louisiana and claims his great ancestor was the pirate Jean Lafitte. His nickname refers to the enormous amount of candy he consumes. Some people occasionally call him bird-man, but not to his face because it’s rumored Sweets carries a razor blade somewhere on his eccentric being.

I stepped out of the Impala. He waved a lollipop in the direction of his motorcycle.

“Had to dig out the old standby since you guys stole my wheels,” he said, pointing to a beat-to-shit Harley Road King. There were killer bikers like the Hells Angels and Satans who would not look kindly on someone who mistreated a Harley this way. To them, it would be like beating your pet dog. Or should I say hog? Since Sweets’ new address would soon be San Quentin’s death row, why would he care?

“Get over here,” I said. I opened the trunk of the car halfway. “Is this Winona?” He bent down and looked inside. I was hoping that maybe I was wrong.

“Muthafukaaaa,” he said, dragging the word out so each syllable resonated, the last vowel sounding like a long-anguished sigh, like he was strangling.

I took his reaction to mean yes. I closed the trunk, and we walked into the restaurant. I ordered two cups of coffee. Sweets ordered the Double Pancake breakfast special with scrambled eggs, bacon on the side.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“When I’m nervous, I eat,” he explained.

“What are we going to do about this?” I asked. “We need to think fast. There’s no fucking way this is getting back to us. Since Winona is your girlfriend and this is your car, you’re the prime suspect.”

“It’s not my car. You repo’ed it.”

“It was in your possession when the body entered the trunk, Sweets. We didn’t repo it until this morning.”

“Dude, I didn’t kill Winona,” he said, his voice rising to a squawk.

A couple of guys sitting at the counter looked over. “Keep it down, Sweets. I know you didn’t kill anyone. I’m just saying that’s what the cops will think. Look, I’m way out on a limb just being here and not reporting the body immediately. Capisci?”

“For which I’m grateful, Victor, truly.”

“Vincent is all for calling the cops.”

“Give me a minute for my brain to kick in.”

There might have been plates clattering and customers talking and doors opening and closing, and waitresses calling out orders, but I wouldn’t have heard anything; the silence from the other side of the booth was deafening. Finally, Sweets said, “If the cops pin this on me, I’m going to jail big time. You know they’ll make the connection, and the cops are always dragging my ass in every time there’s a tweeny weenie burglary.”

“You got any ideas? Vincent and I are willing to help, but only so far.”

“You guys want refills?” the waitress asked as she put Sweets’ breakfast in front of him. She had no lips and no chin and enough hair for two women. The way she was looking at us, I was afraid she’d heard Sweets and was being nosy.

I waved her away. Sweets called her back and ordered a side of strawberry waffles with extra whipped cream. Sweets’ metabolism probably burns up most of the food he swallows before it hits his stomach. In keeping with his personality, his eyes were twitching, and his fingers drumming, and his knees beneath the table jiggling. He looked as if at any moment, he’d fly away.

“All right, this is what we do,” he said. “We find a more dignified resting place for Winona’s body than the trunk of the car. After we do that, you detail the Impala, and I go find an alibi.”

“I hope you’re not talking about some midnight burial, cuz that’s not happening.”

“No, we remove her from the Impala and place her where she’ll be found and given a decent burial.”

“What’s with the we?”

“You and me, Victor. I can’t do this without you. I can’t carry Winona all by myself. Winona is a big girl. She outweighs me. Besides, I hurt my arm recently on a job.”

Probably climbing in a window I thought. “It’s daylight,” I said.

“We wait until night.”

“Where the hell can we leave Winona?”

Sweets stuffed his mouth and chewed. “Got it,” he said with his mouth full. “Satans.”

“Aw, geez.”

The Satans were the badest motorcycle club in the United States, worse than the Hells Angels and the Mongols combined. Their clubhouse was on East 14th about a dozen or so blocks from our lot. “You gotta be kidding,” I said.

“I’m not joking,” Sweets said. “I’ll break into their club house. I’ve been inside. There’s a comfy looking couch in their conference room. We’ll put a blanket over her, put a pillow under her head, kind of tuck her in, you know, be real respectful.”

“Aw, geez,” I said again. “You’re nuts. That honcho of theirs, you know, Sunny something. He’s been coming by the lot hitting on Sylvia. He brought her a bunch of roses one time. She chased him off, but he keeps coming back. He looks mean. He acts mean, and I’m sure he doesn’t like me. I don’t want anything to do with those freaks.”

“This will take the pressure off me.”

“How so?”

“We put the heat on the Satans. Look, as far as I know Winona ran away from home when she was thirteen. She used to ho. . .”

“What, what?’

“Ho, whore, Jesus, Victor. But she got out of the game and started temp working. Cleaning up her act. There’s no family. She used to have a roommate, but lives alone now. The cops will have to check out the Satans first before they start looking around for other suspects. Yours truly, for instance.”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. When the air decided to return to my lungs, I leaned across the table and swatted him across the forehead. “You are one crazy Cajun. There’s no way I’m doing it.”

“No, no. Listen, I’m not crazy. See, defense lawyers always be doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Like making up something so the jury has an alternative suspect, like on television. You know, like, yeah he coulda done it, but so could that cat over there. You dig?”

I didn’t even have a shovel. What I heard was that we could be making some serious enemies if we fucked with the Satans. “Do you have any idea what the Satans would do to us if they knew we set them up to take the fall for Winona’s murder? Do you have any idea?”

The waitress arrived with the waffles.

Sweets ordered more toast. When she left, he said, “Look, I know there’s nobody at the clubhouse because the assholes are cruising the coast. We place an anonymous call. Bad boys return, cops arrest them. All’s cool. Sure, they’ll be upset, but how will they know who did it?”

This was not the help I’d been expecting from Sweets. But given Sweets’ shaky moral character, I don’t know what kind of help I expected. Speaking of moral character, I was wondering about my own, and feeling depressed.

Sweets kept eating, and I kept telling him he was insane, and he persisted, through mouths full of bacon and pancakes, and waffles and toast. It was disgusting. This was the only way he could avoid being sent to prison, he explained. He reminded me that he’d saved my pop. Low blow. I told him so. I’d pay for a lawyer. Finally, I got fed up with all his whining.

“Look, Sweets, this is it. I’m taking the Impala back to where we found it and leave it. You do whatever the fuck you want getting an alibi.” Vincent would be proud of me.

That’s when Sweets confessed. No, he didn’t admit to killing his ex-girlfriend, but he explained that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Louisiana, pronouncing it Loosyana.

“I’ve been very careful since I moved here,’ he said.

Sweets was a burglar, so how careful could he have been, I wondered. “That’s your story,” I said, but I could tell by Sweets’ eyes that he was scared. He started describing what the inside of a maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana called Angola looked like. His voice trembled when he described some of the atrocities that happened there. Half way through his sad tale, I held up my hand, took a deep breath and said, “All right, stop. We’ll do it your way.” Pop, I thought, this decision is on you.

“It’s a solid plan, Victor. The Satans are a bunch of muthafuckin killers anyway. You have any idea how much dope they’re personally responsible for putting on the street, killing our children?”

Saint Sweets, give me a break.

Besides, they’ll all have alibis,” Sweets said. “Our plan will misdirect the cops, you know like in football, fake right, run left. Sheeet, they’ll get around to me soon enough, but by then I’ll have my story in place. Been in Santa Cruz the last four days, Mr. Po–liceman. I’ll have at least three witnesses.”

I nodded. The lies kept coming. Sweets was the kind of guy who believed his lies. Lots of politician like that. Still, agreeing to his plan seemed the only way the Brovelli boys’ used car business would not take a hit financially, Pop’s precious honor would remain unblemished, I wouldn’t lose my Impala, and Sweets might have a chance to survive the atrocities of Louisiana’s prison from hell. Anyway, after tonight the Brovelli Boys would be out of it. It occurred to me that no matter how air-tight Sweets’ alibi, since this was a homicide case, I couldn’t imagine the cops not discovering his priors. If that happened, I promised myself the Brovelli family would send care packages to the prison in Louisiana. It was a rationalization, but necessary to convince myself. I heard my pop’s voice: Ci si puo lavare le mani, ma non la coscienza, You can wash your hands, but not your conscience.

I fingered the medal of Saint Anthony hanging around my neck and said a little prayer. Sweets and I made plans where to meet and at what time. I paid the bill because Sweets never had any money. I left the burglar to finish his breakfast. As I walked out the door, I heard him calling for more waffles.

Now I had to explain Sweets’ plan to my brother and hope he wouldn’t freak out.