Tin City (19 page)

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Authors: David Housewright

Tags: #Mystery & Thriller

BOOK: Tin City
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I became bored listening. Then angry with her constant starting and stopping, repetitions, experiments, and incessant humming. Music is like sausages, I decided—it’s better not to see how it’s made.
Pen managed to put about twenty seconds of music together before pronouncing herself satisfied. Satisfied with what, I couldn’t say. I had taken a year of music appreciation in college, yet today I’d heard none of the musical elements I was taught to listen for. I began to ask myself,
Does she really make money doing this?
“All right,” Pen told herself. “Let’s see what we have.”
She started playing, only not the notes she had been writing the past sixty minutes. She began instead with an unhurried introduction that lasted about ten seconds, lingering over a single note at the end of it that hung in the air like the call of a songbird summoning its mate.
Deftly, she slid into an upbeat tempo, and the song began to soar—a quarter note executed with the speed of an eighth, a sixteenth flashing by like a thirty-second. After the introduction, she played two verses and launched into a chorus with a catchy, hummable hook that repeated and expanded the note structure of her introduction. I found myself diagramming the song in my head. I A A B. I was expecting another verse, but she fooled me by gliding across a bridge—a middle eight—eight bars played in the same key but with a vastly different chord progression, taking the song in a different direction, adding texture. It was the same twenty seconds of music she had worked so hard on, and suddenly it made perfect sense.
The bridge brought me back to the chorus, led into another verse, then went back to the chorus again, which Pen repeated twice. C B A B B. Only she had built an extro into the final chorus so the song would end dramatically and not merely repeat itself monotonously until the studio technician faded it out.
I was actually applauding when Pen finished. Then I leapt for my tape recorder and switched it on.
“Play it again,” I said to the recorder.
Pen began with the introduction, but when she hit that wondrous note before launching into the body of the song, the telephone rang.
“It’s me,” Sykora said.
“I was expecting your call,” Pen told him.
“You were?”
Pen didn’t answer.
Sykora said, “Yeah.”
“Coming home at a decent hour two nights in a row—what are the odds?” Pen asked.
“I have a job to do.”
“I understand. Gallivanting about the countryside like the Lone Ranger battling the forces of evil. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in Hilltop in a crummy mobile home.”
“It’s all about you, isn’t it, Pen? What’s good for you.”
“No. It’s about what’s good for us.”
“We were together last night.”
“One night a week we pretend we’re married. What fun.”
“Stop it.”
“We didn’t live like this in New York.”
“Yes, we did. Only you were too busy to notice.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“You were never there for me, Lucky. You were always too busy hanging with your gay partner. Or you were busy hitting the clubs uptown because you needed to ‘feel the pulse of the music scene’”—I heard the quotes in his voice—“or you were busy ‘taking a meeting’ with some record producer no one has ever heard of.”
“That’s part of my job—”
“What job? It’s not a job? It’s a hobby.”
“It’s not a hobby,” I shouted at the receiver.
“It’s not a hobby,” Pen shouted a beat behind me. “I’ve sold eight songs.”
“Eight songs in four years. And made just enough money to buy a car.”
“Which you drive.”
“Pen, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Pen … It’ll get better. Once I get Granata, it’ll get better.”
“Granata? From New York? I thought you were done with organized crime. I thought it was all about terrorism now.”
“Granata is a terrorist.”
“He’s a gangster. The last of the godfathers. You said so yourself.”
“I’m going to tie him to terrorism and bring down his entire family. Wait and see.”
“You’re obsessed with him, obsessed just like you were in New York.”
“I am not obsessed. I’m a cop and he’s a crook. That’s all there is to it.”
“Steven, I thought we transferred here because … Does the FBI know you’re still working on Granata?”
Sykora didn’t say.
“You’re doing it on your own time, aren’t you? That’s why you’re always working late. That’s why you take my car instead of using a company car.”
“Pen—”
“This is why our marriage is suffering? Because of Granata?”
“It’s my job.”
“Granata isn’t your job,” Pen shouted. “He’s your hobby.”
“There’s no talking to you.”
“Steven—”
“I’ll be home late.”
Sykora broke the connection. A moment later, Pen set the telephone receiver back in its cradle.
What was it Tolstoy wrote about unhappy families being unhappy each in its own way? This seemed fairly common to me—a husband too busy to make time for his wife. I recalled how Pen and Sykora had treated each other the evening before. They were in love. For a time. But the relationship between them had become a slow war of attrition—one step forward, two steps back. Gradually it would wear away all the qualities that had once made them dear to one another, leaving only
scorched earth behind. Who knew if anything would ever grow there again?
There was silence on the other end of the receiver. Followed eventually by a long, almost agonizing sigh. Followed by metallic sounds. Followed by Pen’s voice.
“Tommy, this is for you. If it’s not quite what we talked about … Tommy, I’m in a mood.”
She began to play, only it wasn’t the same as before. Pen slowed the tempo to four-four time, and suddenly her upbeat song was mournful, almost despairing.
Then Pen surprised me yet again. She added lyrics.
You wonder how it went so wrong.
So do I, so do I.
You wonder if we can carry on.
So do I, so do I.
A telephone call had done this
, I told myself. The argument had altered Pen’s happy disposition, turning it both pensive and blue. And the result was something extraordinary. A song that saddened the heart. Listening to her play, I thought I had discovered a painful truth about creativity and genius.
There was a long pause after Pen had finished.
“That’s it for me, Tommy,” she said at last. “Give me a call.” Instead of applauding, I found myself wishing I could give her a hug and tell her everything would be all right. A silly thing to wish, I suppose.
I could hear the sound of fingers tapping a computer keyboard as I swapped the cassette in the recorder for a fresh tape and hid it in my sock with the other cassette. The finger tapping ceased, followed by Pen’s voice. “Isn’t modern technology swell?” she said.
 
 
I’ve always loved libraries, loved the very idea of them. They’re citadels of peace and quiet and intellectual freedom and civilization—commodities that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. They are, in a word, the most “democratic” places on earth, although they’ve been finding it harder to remain that way. The sign on the circulation desk read: UNDER SECTION 215 OF THE USA PATRIOT ACT, THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MAY OBTAIN ANY RECORDS THIS LIBRARY MIGHT POSSESS PERTAINING TO A PATRONS READING HABITS AND INTERNET USE WITHOUT INFORMING THE PATRON WHOSE RECORDS ARE BEING SEIZED.
I took it as a warning.
The fact that the library felt compelled to post such a missive alarmed me. I remembered as a kid hanging out at the Merriam Park Public Library on Marshall and Fairview in St. Paul, grabbing a book, any book, often at random, and reading whatever it said without worrying if the choice identified me as a terrorist. Or worse yet, a liberal. Now there are plenty of people who are quite happy to do my worrying for me, who spend much of their time looking for things to offend and frighten them, things that they can protect me from whether I want that protection or not. It’s all about life, liberty, and the pursuit of
their
happiness. If they don’t actually burn books, it’s only because it looks bad on TV.
To use the Internet terminals, I needed a library card and a personal identification number. I showed the librarian Jacob Greene’s counterfeit card and driver’s license and said I only wanted to check my e-mail back home, which apparently happens all the time. The librarian happily logged me on with a temporary PIN and moved away.
I called up a search engine and typed in the name Granata. I received thousands of hits. I narrowed the list by adding the words “organized
crime.” Four articles appeared, three published in New York and one by the BBC news service.
The first two New York articles weren’t very informative. One trumpeted the fact that the heads of all five New York City Mafia families were simultaneously behind bars for the first time. It listed the families:
Bonanno. Reputed boss Joseph Massino had been indicted in connection with a decades-old murder.
Colombo. Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico cut a deal with federal prosecutors and was now ratting on everyone.
Gambino. Peter Gotti, brother to John Gotti, was locked up on charges of racketeering and extortion a short time after Gotti’s heir, John Jr., was convicted of racketeering and gambling.
Genovese. Vincent “the Chin” Gigante remained jailed on a racketeering conviction.
Luchese. Vittorio “Vic” Amuso was doing life without parole on racketeering and murder charges.
The name Granata was mentioned only once, toward the end of the article. The sentence read:
The only major crime figure who is not incarcerated or under indictment is reputed Bonanno acting boss Angelo “Little Al” Granata, a reclusive figure, who lives modestly in Queens.
The second article was a fluff piece. It suggested that while people living in the Big Apple applauded whenever a local prosecutor took down a wiseguy, they seemed to love having them in their midst and gloried in reports of the adventures and feuds. Readers were disappointed, so the article claimed, that
notoriously publicity-shy Angelo Granata, alleged acting head of the Bonanno family, didn’t live up to the standards set by the flamboyant Gottis.
The BBC story was all business. It stated that the health of the New York Mafia was in decline and that starting with the conviction of John Gotti, the pressure on the Mafia clans had been relentless. It reported that hundreds of soldiers were now behind bars, along with the five reputed
family leaders, revenues had been cut in half, and membership in the Mafia was waning. The exception, according to the BBC, was the Bonanno clan, which,
under the leadership of Angelo Granata, is by far the strongest and most disciplined of the five families.
The final item appeared in the column of a New York tabloid’s selfstyled “crime watcher.”
Little Al’s big pain seems to have been cured (take two .22s and don’t call in the morning). Prime ’vine has it that an irate co-conspirator began working for a regime change when his scheme for a Bonanno-imposed Mafia EU went PU. Yet with the capricious capo now doing his best Jimmy Hoffa impersonation, peace and tranquility has once again returned to Granata world.
There was no mention of Frank Crosetti in any of the articles. When I typed his name into the search engine, I discovered that he had been one helluva shortstop.
Since I was there, I searched for the name Penelope Glass. It took me about five minutes to discover why she had asked if I had listened to Suzy Bogguss and Chely Wright. Both country-western songbirds had sung tunes written by Glass and Heyward. Bogguss had recorded “Something Like Love” and “Gone So Long” on an album of jazz music; apparently she was switching genres. Wright had sung “Table for Two” and “The Bottom of the Sea” on an album that was essentially C&W. And then there was Bonnie Raitt, one of my all-time favorites, singing “Fire and Smoke” on a blues CD I had listened to a half dozen times already.
I really ought to pay closer attention to the liner notes,
I told myself.
On the way back to the motel, I stopped at a record store and bought Suzy Bogguss’s and Chely Wright’s CDs and a machine to play them on. I listened to the songs Pen had written enough times that I could recite some of the lyrics in my sleep.
The sun was shining and the birds were singing, but I spent most of Saturday inside my motel room. Time passed slowly. I don’t know what Pen was doing alone in her trailer, but she did it quietly. Sykora had left at a little after 9:00 A.M. “I’m sure you understand,” he told her. Pen didn’t say if she did or didn’t. Since then I’d heard very little over the receiver, just enough rustling sounds to convince me Pen was still there.
The morning stretched into afternoon. I watched the Baseball Game of the Week on Fox with the sound off and was astonished when they started doing the wave at Busch Stadium. Rogers Hornsby must’ve rolled over in his grave. I don’t like the wave. Or playing loud music between innings and before every at bat. Or scoreboards that tell the crowd when to cheer. Or guys who wear suits and ties to the ballpark. Or the designated hitter, for that matter. But mostly I don’t like the wave.
Early in the third inning, Pen’s telephone rang. I hit the record button and listened.
“Hello,” she said.
“Is your husband home?” The voice was definitely Frank’s.
“Who’s calling, please?”
“Never mind that. Is Sykora home?”
“I’m sorry. He’s not in at the moment. May I take a message?”
“Shit,” Frank said and hung up.
Pen did the same.
In the bottom of the eighth, the phone rang again. This time it was Sykora.
He said, “You have to stop being angry at me.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Yes, you are. And whenever you get angry at me I get this terrible, hollow feeling in my stomach that makes me think that something awful is going to happen.”
“I’m not angry,” Pen repeated.
“I’m trying, Pen. Honest to God, I am.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go out for dinner tonight.”
“Really?”
“You pick the restaurant.”
“Ruth Schramm—you know Ruth—she told me about a northern Italian restaurant called Lido’s in Roseville that’s supposed to have a simply divine terrace. It’s such a beautiful day—we could eat outside.”
“Make a reservation.”
“I will. Oh,” added Pen. “Someone called asking for you. He didn’t leave a name or message, only an obscenity.”
Sykora paused a moment, then said, “I’ll see you in a little bit.”
After Sykora hung up the phone, there was plenty to listen to on the receiver. Pen making a reservation for two at Lido’s. Pen humming. Pen taking a shower. Pen getting dressed. Pen humming some more.
The phone rang again.
Pen stopped humming.
“I’m sorry,” Sykora told her.
“You said—”
“I know what I said.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s the job.”
“You work your damn job. I’m going to dinner.”
Pen hung up the phone. I heard the opening and closing of a drawer followed by the rustling of pages—I guessed a telephone book. Pen picked up the phone again. She booked a cab.
The cabbie was knocking on her trailer door at about the time I finished dressing.
 
 
 
Pen was standing with her back to the door when I entered Lido’s. She was having a heated discussion with the maître d’. Something about her reservation.
She looked carefully put together—hair swept back, light makeup expertly applied, wearing a rose-colored ruffled silk dress that conjured images of village greens and ice cream socials and soft summer nights. I found myself watching her like you might watch a slowly flowing river or clouds in the sky.
After a few moments I came up behind her.
“We have to stop meeting like this.”
The scowl on her face for the maître d’ was quickly transformed into a brilliant smile just for me.
“Jake. What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d treat myself to something a few notches above fast food. Ruth Schramm put me onto this place.”
“Me, too.”
“Where’s the main squeeze?”
“Steve.” She said the name like she didn’t like the sound of it. “He’s too busy to have dinner with his wife.”
“He’s a moron.”
Pen didn’t say if she agreed or not.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she said. “This young man”—she gestured at the maître d’—“insists they will only seat parties of two or more on the terrace,
regardless
of my reservation.”
“If the lady and gentleman would care to dine together,” said the kid.
“Just what I was thinking,” Pen said.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m glad for your company.”
A few moments later a waiter sat us at a table beneath a huge oak tree whose branches spread out over the terrace. There were two dozen other tables, all filled except for three, and they stayed empty only for a few minutes. I didn’t blame the restaurant for its restrictive seating policy. In Minnesota when the weather is good, an outdoor restaurant table is prime real estate.
“I looked you up on the Internet,” I told Pen after we were seated.
“You did?”
“I learned the names of some of the artists who recorded your music and then went out and bought the CDs. The song that Bonnie Raitt sang, ‘Fire and Smoke’—it’s wonderful. ‘Bottom of the Sea’ that Chely Wright recorded—it gave me goose bumps.”
“That is so kind of you to say.”
“Honestly, Pen. Why aren’t you rich and famous?”
“I’m working on it, I’m working on it.”
“You make Carole King look like an amateur.”
“‘A Natural Woman,’ ‘I Feel The Earth Move,’ ‘You’ve Got a Friend’—that Carole King? Let’s not get carried away, Jake.”
“I mean it.”
Pen leaned across the table. “You’re sweet,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze.
After my heart restarted, I gave her my Groucho Marx eyebrows and said, “Given a choice, I’d rather be sexy.”
Pen let her hand rest on mine. Her touch was as light as a hummingbird perched on my finger.
“Trust me. Sweet is better.”
We ordered drinks and then dinner. While we were waiting for the food, Pen said, “Do you know why I’m having dinner with you? I mean besides wanting the table?”
“I figured it was because of my charm and Russell Crowe—like good looks.”
“It’s because my husband wouldn’t like it.” She watched my face to see if her words registered. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
I figured she was being brave, standing up to her husband without actually having to stand up to him, but said, “Not really,” just the same.
“I’m not sure I know, either.” She added quickly, “You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been married?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“The usual reasons.”
“Name one.”
“I’m still waiting for the perfect woman to sweep me off my feet.”
“There are no perfect women.”
“Yes, there are.”
I meant her, and Pen knew it. Her eyes brightened, and blood rushed to her face, making her freckles that much more noticeable. She
shifted in her chair and toyed with her wineglass. A black and orange monarch butterfly flitted around the table and drifted behind the tree. Pen watched its flight carefully.
She said, “A song Tommy and I wrote, I wanted to call it ‘Butterfly.’ But Tommy changed the title, named it ‘Dragonfly.’ It’s a better title, I have no complaints. Except I had worked on it for a couple weeks calling it ‘Butterfly’ and it stuck in my head. It has to do with the danger of staying in one place too long. ‘Wings were made to fly, lovers born to say good-bye.’ That’s one of the lyrics. Only—I don’t believe it. I never have. Anyway, we’re trying to sell it to the Indigo Girls.”
I had to admire the way she so deftly made her point and moved on.
We had just finished dessert when it began to rain.
The rain had come in a hurry, one of those fast-moving cloudbursts that took everyone by surprise. Customers began scurrying for cover, some laughing, others cursing, while the waitstaff cleared everything off the terrace except tables and chairs.
Pen and I hid beneath the great oak during the few minutes until the deluge passed. She looked marvelous, a happy grin on her face, hair wet with rain, and the bodice of her summery dress clinging to her curves. I removed my jacket and slipped it over her shoulders. She smiled at me with such an expression of gratitude that I flinched—
It’s just a coat, lady—
and wondered at how she could find such value in a simple act of courtesy.
“I love rain,” she said. “I love snow, too. And …”
I leaned in and kissed her softly. I had never kissed a married woman before—not like that—and was both surprised and thrilled by the way it made me feel. She didn’t move away when I finished. Instead, her eyes shined with pleasure and excitement and anticipation. So I kissed her again. Longer this time.
It
’
s was a little thing,
I told myself,
and her husband wouldn’t mind.
Pen began to tremble like a teardrop that hadn’t fallen—
the chill
, I told myself. She set her hands on my chest and pushed me away. There was nothing urgent in her gesture, but it was determined just the same.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’d like to. More than you know. But I can’t. There’s just no way.”
She slipped my coat off her shoulders and thrust it into my hands. A moment later she was gone, with only the faint scent of her herbal shampoo remaining behind.
I paid for the meal and wandered into the restaurant’s lobby. I found Pen working the pay phone.
“You can’t get a cab in this town,” she said.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I can’t be as bad as all that.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, it’s … Hilltop is a small community, and I don’t want to be a target of gossip.”
“Pen—”
“No.”
That was plain enough. I turned to leave. I spun back when Pen called my name.
She said, “You’re smart, Jake. You’re funny, you’re generous, considerate, cute, sweet, you’re brave. Jake, you’re the jackpot.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. And I like you a lot. But I’m married. As it turns out, I love my husband. Yet even if I didn’t love my husband, I’d still be married, and there are rules about that.”
“Whose rules?”
“Mine.”
That was plainer still.
 
 
It had stopped raining by the time I left Lido’s, but the way the clouds gathered on the horizon, it didn’t look as though it was through for the evening. I found my Neon in the back row and rested against the door.
Maybe I should insist on taking Pen home,
I told myself.
Yeah, and tuck her into bed, too.
I glanced back at the front doors of the restaurant.
“You’ve done enough damage,” I said aloud.
I climbed inside the car, started it up, and maneuvered it across the parking lot. I was approaching the street when I felt a cold prickling on the back of my neck, a familiar friend announcing his presence—fear. I sensed it even before my conscious mind could determine the cause. Parked near the entrance to the parking lot was a gray 1988 Ford Ranger 4x4 with rust on all four sides. Two men were sitting in the cab. The one behind the steering wheel looked exactly like the man who had attempted to grab Pen in Hilltop three days earlier.
There was no indication that Pen’s attacker made me, but then I wasn’t looking for one. Instead, I forced myself to stare straight ahead when I drove past, pretending the pickup didn’t even exist. I headed up the street, hung a U-turn the moment I was out of sight, and parked next to the used car lot across the street from Lido’s. The lot was closed for the evening, and no one challenged me as I weaved past the rows of cars. I came out of the lot behind and to the right of the Ranger. I walked in a straight line toward it while trying to stay in the driver’s blind spot should he glance at his mirrors.
The windows to the truck were rolled down, and I could hear music as I approached. Rachmaninov’s
Russian Rhapsody.
The sound startled me. Heavy metal I could understand. Or country-western. But how many thugs do you know who listen to classical music?
I crouched low and circled the truck until I reached the driver’s window. I popped up and said, “Hi, fellas.”

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