Rubout (17 page)

Laurie walked sedately back and forth on the sidewalk, while a crowd of neighbors gathered and read the sign. They were mostly well-dressed matrons and businessmen in suits, and they thoroughly disapproved of this spectacle on their street. Promptly at 10:00
A.M
., Mr. Family Value and his mustache got out of a shiny new blue-green Buick.

“Laurie! What is the meaning of this?” he barked.

“Read the sign,” she said sweetly.

“I’m calling the police and having you removed. This is illegal,” he said.

“Not as long as I stay on the sidewalk,” she said.

“It’s libelous,” he screamed. The crowd didn’t like him yelling at tiny Laurie. There was a low, angry murmur. Laurie refused to be bullied. I was scribbling frantically.

“Not as long as I’m telling the truth,” she said.
“That is the exact amount. Here’s the most recent court order.” She held it out to the crowd. A woman with steel-colored hair and an equally steely expression put on her half-glasses and examined it eagerly, then passed it onto her neighbor carrying an NPR tote.

“I have to do something,” Laurie said calmly. “I can’t make the payments for our children’s Catholic school tuition.” Mrs. Steel frowned. Score another point for Laurie. This Catholic neighborhood would be doubly shocked by a father who deserted his family and wouldn’t pay for a proper religious education.

“Laurie, I told you I was short of money,” he said, but now he was pleading.

“You have money for a brand-new Buick,” Mrs. NPR Tote said.

“Disgraceful!” Mrs. Steel said. They both shook their heads.

“So much for Mr. Family Value’s family values,” said someone else in the gathering crowd, but it was hard to tell where the remark came from. Everyone was making disparaging comments. Mr. Family Value was starting to sweat, even though the morning was chilly.

“Susie better watch her sweet self. She could be next!” Mrs. Tote said. “And that cute little baby will have nothing to hold on to. Is this your family value?”

“Family Value! Family Value!” the crowd chanted while Laurie marched back and forth. Traffic was slowing down on Hampton to watch. A police car pulled up, followed by a four-wheel drive vehicle belonging to a TV station. I was enjoying this.

“Laurie, sweetheart, lets discuss this inside,” he said in a wheedling tone.

“Let’s talk about it in front of witnesses,” she said firmly. “I’d especially like to talk to that nice TV reporter.” Mr. Family Value’s eyes were wide with terror as he saw the cameraman open the back of the vehicle. This station did not carry his commercial.

“I’ll write you a check!” he yelped, as if he’d been stung.

“Better hurry,” Laurie said. “I think he’s getting ready to shoot.”

The crowd cheered as Mr. Family Value wrote a check for $9,983.62, right there on the sidewalk. It made a great shot for the TV cameraman. After he left, Laurie was only too happy to talk to me. “I said I wouldn’t talk to that TV reporter if he wrote the check, but I never mentioned anything about the newspaper,” she said. Mr. Family Value said nothing to me but “no comment,” which only made my job easier. I’d bagged a column before noon.

I found a pay phone at the Target store. I didn’t want this call to go through the
Gazette
switchboard. Jim Grove, my computer maven, had done some electronic snooping for me last night. He told me to call him at home after eleven this morning. Jim worked deep in the
Gazette
computer room, a windowless, white-floored, temperature-controlled room. But he didn’t look like your typical pasty-faced computer nerd. Jim was a sailor who happened to like computers. The income from his grandfather’s patent malaria medicine, Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic, allowed him to indulge his passion for boats. He had a vintage 1966 power boat, a fifty-footer with
a wood cabin lovingly crafted by Carolina cabinetmakers. One summer he took it from Florida to Nova Scotia, a memorable five-month trip. I’d never seen the boat, but I saw a photo of Jim on deck. The man had great legs.

Jim was enough of a free spirit he’d help prove Monahan’s innocence—if he was innocent. I thought of his shaky hands and wondered if Monahan was making those mistakes himself. I was almost afraid to call Jim, but I did. He answered on the first ring.

“Morning, Francesca,” he said cheerfully. “I found what you wanted. Monahan was absolutely correct. He sent the first story to the Family desk, the holding desk for edited copy, at one-oh-four, and ‘condom’ was spelled correctly. At one-sixteen it was changed to ‘condum’ by someone logged in to terminal 22. That’s the Family copy chief’s desk. Same story, different times for suprise.”

“Cruella set him up,” I said.

“Whoever was sitting at terminal 22 at one-sixteen on that date set him up. I’ve saved you a printout.”

“It was Cruella. She always takes an early lunch. You got her, Jim. I can’t wait to tell Monahan. I’m on my way into the office.”

I found Ralph right where I’d parked him. That car was such a pleasure to drive. Too bad it was not a pleasure to go to the
Gazette.
The place was positively poisonous since Charlie took over. Today the newsroom was strangely silent. Now that Charlie was managing editor, it was often quiet. But that was a sullen quiet, like a classroom with a mean teacher. This was different. This silence had a shocked quality to it. People stood around in little groups, talking
softly. Whatever was wrong, it was bad. When I got back to the Family department, I didn’t hear any bickering on the copy desk. I’d prayed for that silence, but now it seemed unpleasant and brooding. Family Editor Wendy wasn’t around, as usual. The phones were ringing, and Louise wasn’t answering them. She was sitting at her desk, crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

She got out two words before she cried again. “It’s Monahan.”

“What’s Monahan?”

“He had a stroke. He probably won’t make it,” Louise said. I was shocked and numbed by the news, but not surprised, not really. I remembered the way his hands shook and the waxy white over red color of his skin.

“When did it happen?”

“Last night at ten-thirty. His poor wife called this morning. He’s not expected to live out the week, poor thing. He was such a nice man. The last of the real newsmen. As far as I’m concerned, when Monahan dies, the old
Gazette
is dead.”

“And I know who killed it,” I said. I didn’t say anything else. Now I’d probably never be able to tell Monahan he didn’t make those mistakes. I wished I could have called Lyle and talked with him about what happened. He knew how much I liked Monahan. But we weren’t talking. So I did what I always do when I’m unhappy. I threw myself into my work. I wrote my column about Laurie. Then I started on my story about Sydney’s life and last days, and how a Ladue lady went from society soirées to biker balls. As I was pawing through my notes to find
another interview, I found a notice on my desk that added to my misery. There was another meeting of the Voyage Committee next week. I groaned. I had to spend more time in the company wind tunnel. I needed to get out of the newsroom right now. Too many things were going wrong: Monahan was dying. The Voyage Committee was meeting. Could things get any worse? Oh, yes. Much worse. On my way out of the newsroom, I ran into Charlie. A close encounter with my boss was never pleasant, but he had a weasely grin that let me know he was up to something nasty.

“How’s Lyle?” he asked, while the reporters sitting around us pretended to type on their computers. I knew they were pretending because Charmaine, the one closest to me, kept hitting the same four keys.

“Just fine,” I lied.

“I saw him at lunch at O’Connell’s the other day. He must like chicken.”

“Usually he has their burgers,” I said, wondering why we were discussing Lyle’s eating habits at an Irish bar.

“He was lunching with a student,” Charlie said. That slice of grin again. Like a knife in my gut. “Very pretty blonde. Young. Looked to be almost twenty years younger than you. She was hanging on his every word. Hanging on him, too. Everyone was talking about it. Just thought you should know about his little lunch.”

“It’s okay, Charlie,” I said. “I know he eats.”

I heard Charlie laughing as I walked away and pretended I didn’t care. That conversation was Charlie’s payback. He was notoriously unfaithful, and I’d let
him know more than once what I thought of his tomcat behavior. Naturally, Charlie wouldn’t pass up Lyle’s little slip with a student.

Damn Lyle twice over. He was going out with a student! Lyle was forty-nine years old. What could he say to a nineteen-year-old girl? Of course, maybe he wasn’t talking to her. Maybe when he was in bed with her he didn’t see the cellulite I had on my thighs, or that sag around my midsection, or . . . the hell with that. There was only one thing to do when I felt like this. Head for a bar.

I picked one to suit my mood: South Side Annie’s on Delor Street. Annie was a sixtyish woman who weighed about ninety-seven pounds, and most of that was her haystack of sprayed blond hair. She didn’t look big enough to lift her unfiltered cigarettes. But Annie once blew away two holdup men with a shotgun. As far as Annie was concerned, they gave her two reasons for the instant death penalty: Both pulled weapons on her, and one used the line she hated most in the world. He sneered and said, “Annie, get your gun?” She did. She kept it within reach under the bar.

Their deaths were ruled justifiable homicides. No charges were filed, and South Side Annie’s became one of the safest bars in the city. In the afternoons, the neighborhood seniors drank cheap beer at her place. At night, when they toddled home to bed, bikers drank there. I was hoping I’d see Streak tonight. He owed me a favor. I’d looked up some information for him. His nephew wanted to know about his father, who died a hero in Vietnam. I tracked down the old stories in the
Gazette
files and found some duplicate
photos. Streak owed me, and I was going to cash in. I needed information. I got the feeling the bikers weren’t lying to me, but they weren’t telling me everything I needed to know, either. Maybe Streak would be able to fill in the gaps.

I sat at a back table, in my yuppie beige pantsuit, chugging club sodas, eating a cheeseburger, and watching drunks try to get the big prize in the claw machine: a neon-pink stuffed bear. Annie could have kept herself in smokes for a month with the quarters they dropped in that claw machine, just while I sat there. A paunchy fellow named Billy came over and tried to hit on me, but Annie called out, “Billy, get over here,” like he was two years old, instead of fifty-two, and Billy obeyed. After Annie shot those guys, most men did obey her. No other man was dumb enough to try to bother me, and I sat there for three hours.

Finally, after eight-thirty, when I wasn’t sure I could force down one more club soda, Streak came through the door, his gray streak glinting in the neon beer signs. Tonight he was wearing black jeans and a Daytona Bike Week T-shirt with a huge faded gold eagle. It set off the panther tattoo on his bicep nicely. I waved him over and offered to buy him a beer. He went up to the bar and bought his own Busch, then sat down with me. “What brings you here, Francesca?”

“You. I’m here to collect my favor. Shouldn’t be too difficult, Streak. I’m just trying to find out what’s going on. I promised Sonny I’d look into what happened at the Leather and Lace Ball. I don’t think a biker killed Sydney Vander Venter, either. But I’m
not getting straight answers from some of them, so I can find out who did.”

“I’m not sure I know what you need, Francesca. But ask me some questions.”

“I need to know what Crazy Jerry was doing at the time of the murder,” I said.

Streak started laughing, as if my question amused him. “Sorry, Francesca, I can’t betray a brother. Jerry and I, we go all the way back to Nam. But I’ll give you a hint. Ask him that question sometime when Stephanie isn’t around and you might get an answer.”

“When can I see him without her? They live together, right?”

“They do, although I’m not sure how long it’s going to continue. She was pretty pissed at him after the Leather and Lace Ball, and he gave the lady reason to be upset. However, if you stop by the factory where he works about three-thirty, quarter to four, some afternoon, you should see him coming out when he gets off work. He rides his Harley most days and parks it up near the side door.” Crazy Jerry worked at a furniture factory near my house, so tracking him down would be easy.

“Okay, fair enough. But I know Gilly wasn’t a Vietnam vet. Can you tell me what he was doing? He says he was with his old lady, but nobody believes him.”

“For once that guy is telling the truth, but he lies so much, who’s going to believe him? I drove Crazy Jerry home, because Steph left without him and he was too shook to drive after that society lady was found dead. While walking to my pickup, I passed Gilly’s car, and the windows were all steamed up. I
wasn’t going to look, but there was this break in the steam, and I saw him with a blonde. Do you know much about Gilly? The story won’t make much sense unless you do. See, he and Mabel still live together, but they really can’t stand each other. She says if they divorce, she gets his left nut or his Harley, whichever hurts more, and I don’t have to tell you the answer to that. So they have this kind of truce. She has a show husband who takes her to church and dances and her relatives’ for dinner and pays the bills, but she does her thing and he does his. He has some girlfriends, but he’s careful not to have them around Mabel. So I just turned my head away when I saw Gilly with the blonde, except something about her looked familiar. Finally, I sorta peeked in and I’m sorry I did. There was Gilly in the backseat with his own wife. They saw me, too. It was embarrassing for all of us. He must have been really drunk to hit on Mabel, and she must have been drunker to say yes. Naturally, no one believes him.”

“So Gilly got caught cheating on his girlfriend with his wife. I think that’s a country song, isn’t it? Well, we cleared one biker suspect. Let’s go for two. Where was Jack, Sydney’s boyfriend? He says he was just riding around after he left the Casa Loma, but nobody saw him.”