Chapter 8

“Well. Would you look at what the cat threw up,” my mother said as she opened the door. “As I live and breathe.”

 

A fuchsia plastic martini glass swayed theatrically in an outstretched hand while a cigarette dangled from the other. I could hear music coming from the back of the house. Ella Fitzgerald. The Ella usually didn’t come out until the bottle was about halfway polished. I knew it was going to be an interesting visit. I smiled.

 

“Entre-vous, my burnt little Injun.” She moved aside to let me in, slopping what was most probably pure vodka onto the threadbare carpet in the tiny front hall. “To what do I owe this great honor?”

 

“Hello, Mother.” I entered the house and kept walking straight through on my way into the living room, talking as I walked. In order to keep on her good side, I made no mention of the booze or the fact that she was in a kimono in the middle of the afternoon. “They told me you came to see me in the hospital. I just wanted to ask you-”

 

“Honey, honey. Wait. Stop,” she pled, following me a bit too quickly down the narrow hallway.

 

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her.

 

“What is it, Mother?”

 

“Well. I just thought we could talk in the kitchen.” She grabbed my arm and tried to lead me back to the kitchen at the front of the house. “I could fix you a drink. You look like you could use one. You sound as though you could use one.” She looked me up and down, feigning disgust.

 

“But the bar is in the living room.” I pointed.

 

“Yes, yes,” she said, frantically waving away the living room with her cigaretted hand, “but the vodka is in the kitchen. Come on, now. Don’t be a nuisance.”

 

“What’s wrong, Mom? You seem agitated.”

 

“Well, if you must know, nosey parker, I happen to be entertaining a guest at the moment. Not that it’s any of your business.”

 

“Oh.” I could feel myself blush. I needed no more coaxing. I was in the kitchen in seconds and she was right behind me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were…”

 

“Now you do. No bother. Now what are you here for, Duncan? I know it’s not to bring me flowers or Mother’s Day cards. What’s the scoop, poop?”

 

I flinched away from her questions and looked at her. It didn’t take much to see why Mickey didn’t like her. Even happily drunk, she was caustic. “Can we sit down for a sec?”

 

“Lead the way, Duncan. I hope it’s good, though.”

 

I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and sat down at the kitchen table. My mother sat across from me, sitting her cigarette inside the divot of a near full ashtray. I poured myself a few fingers of vodka, straight. It had been a rough few days. I was also hoping it would help my throat.

 

“What’s the skin and bones of your visit, my child?” she asked when I finished swilling down the vodka and didn’t move to say anything. “I mean, besides the celebration of your rebirth from the fire. I have a live one in the lair and you’re wasting valuable time.”

 

There it was. The first class attitude I had come to expect from her.

 

“Yeah. Like I said, they told me you were at the hospital,” I began. I looked at the vodka bottle and pondered what would happen if I took another drink. With almost no food in my belly, I knew I was risking a drunk. But every other indicator screamed, ‘do it’. I twisted off the cap and poured another couple shots.

 

“Well, did you see the papers?” she said. “My boy, it was a virtual media frenzy. You know nothing ever happens in this town but growin’ and cuttin’. Grass, Duncan. That’s our life here. You made page one; you and that fire. I had to make sure you were okay.”

 

“Yes. Well…did you happen to see anybody, Mom? Someone maybe a little big? Muscular? While you were there, did anybody else come to my room?”

 

“That idiot of yours was spread in a smile like a lunatic right there on the TV too. Looking like a rubbed penny.”

 

“Mom. Don’t call Mickey an idiot. I won’t sit here and listen to you-”

 

“The boy’s as slow as molasses and twice as thick.”

 

I drank down the rest of the vodka, slammed the glass down on the table and stood up. My mother gave me a ‘what did I do?’ look, but the damage was done. I had overstayed the amount of time I could tolerate being around her by a few minutes.

 

“Just answer the question, Mom,” I said. “Did you or did you not see a muscular guy in or around my room while you were there? It’s important.”

 

“Well, Duncan,” she said, looking guilty enough for me to worry about what was coming next. “There was this one person there.”

 

I sat back down and gripped my now empty glass. She knew who it was at the hospital and I knew I wasn’t going to like her answer. I held on to that glass with all my strength, waiting for the bottom to fall out of my day.

 

“Well, that look on your face isn’t helping anything, young man. You make me want to not tell you. I certainly don’t want to be the bearer of bad news on a day like today.”

 

“Mom,” I said, grinding my teeth as I spoke. “Speak now.”

 

“You’re making your mother very uncomfortable, Duncan.”

 

I spun in the direction of the voice and nearly fell off of my chair. Almost unconsciously, my hand went into my pocket and felt for Roni’s picture. It was fast becoming a security blanket of sorts. I had brought it out and placed it on the table in front of me before I realized what I was doing.

 

“Cat took your tongue for a run, did it?” my father said. His enormous frame swallowed the doorway. He had gone into prison big and came out bigger. Much bigger.

 

“That little lady there was no angel, you know. Let’s have a look.” He reached for the picture of Roni and it disappeared in his mitt. “Still harboring a bad one for a bad one, are ya?”

 

I grabbed it back from him, pushed my chair out and stood up.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice down and failing miserably. I swung on my heels. “What the hell is he doing here?”

 

“I told you to stay in the other room, you,” my mother said, wagging a finger from her martini holding hand at my father and causing the drink to spill over the kitchen table. “Duncan, really. I don’t know what you’re getting so excited for. Last time I looked, I was a grown woman. If I want your father here to visit, there’s nothing wrong with that. You really do have to learn to keep your opinions to yourself.”

 

“For Christ’s sake, Mother. The man’s vile.”

 

“I may be vile, but I’ve come here to help you out this time. There’s more to do in the clink than sit and rotate on my own Goddamn thumb. There’s a lot of information floating around in that dive, Duncan. Information you might be interested in if you can get over yourself for one Goddamn minute and hear me out.”

 

He pushed me back into my chair and I slunk down like a scolded child.

 

“Have yourself another drink, sweetie,” my mother said, pouring another couple of fingers of vodka into my glass. She grabbed another glass from the cupboard, half-filled it with vodka and set it at an empty spot at the table. “Here. You might as well take a seat and join us. I want to applaud you on your wonderful hiding abilities.”

 

My father sat down and took a swig of vodka. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, turning to me. “He’s a big boy. No need to play charades with him any longer. I’m staying with your mother, Duncan. There you have it.”

 

“You know,” I began. “I’d love to reminisce with the two of you. Really, I would. But the thought of spending another minute in this house just makes my skin crawl. If you have something to tell me about Roni, can you spit it out. I need to leave here before I go insane. Although, I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would have any.”

 

“A tart like that one gets talked about in the darkest of places, sonny-boy,” my mother said, stifling a laugh.

 

I stood up again, ready to leave.

 

“Wait now, boy. Think about it for a minute. You know as much as I do that the Hive is the biggest dive in town. Don’t you think them that drinks there would be the same that sleeps in the bunks up the hill? There’s always news from home in that hell, and ten-to-one it’s news from the Hive.”

 

He had a point. Now I had a vested interest and I was willing to sit long enough to hear him out. I decided it was time to stop pouring back the vodka though. I pushed back my glass and offered my father my undivided attention. This brought a slimy smile to his face. He folded his new massive arms across his chest and held court.

 

“That fat puke Tate was cleaning money through the Hive. And your little piece of girlie tail was helping him to do it.” He paused long enough to enjoy the look of shock that spread across my face. “Yep. She was keeping the books on the little side job he had with the big men up in Hannaford. Only, word around the pen was that your Roni was skimming some off the top for herself. Tate doesn’t like to spread the wealth, you see.”

 

“There is no way in hell that Tate is responsible for-”

 

“Hold it there, captain. I ain’t saying that Tate did your little darling. I’m guessing he had nothing to do with that. I’m just telling you what I know, and even that is speculation. I wasn’t even going to say anything until you landed a crispy critter in the county hospital. I put two and two together and figured it measured in at about four.”

 

I looked at my mother, who seemed oblivious to everything except for the martini glass in the one hand and the cigarette in the other. It was just as well. I didn’t want her chiming in with her vitriol against Roni. I got up to leave.

“I don’t know how this helps me, Dad,” I began. “So Roni was keeping books. What does that have to do with me? I already have my suspicions about the fire in my garage and it isn’t anybody from the Hive I’m looking at. It’s Cal that I want to speak to. He’s the only one in this town who has anything against me.”

 

“Are you sure of that, Duncan?” He winked at me.

 

Before I could answer, the doorbell went off. Startled, I jumped just enough for my father to notice and laugh.

 

“You always were a nervous little Nancy, Duncan,” he said. “I don’t know where you got that from, because you sure as hell didn’t get it from me.”

 

My mother came to and went to the door, leaving us in the kitchen alone.

 

“Well if it isn’t the simple hero!”

 

“Shit,” I mumbled, racing to the front door to try to stanch the insults before they overwhelmed Mickey and caused him to flee. “What the hell is he doing here?”

 

“What’s that, Sharpie?” my mother said in a mocking tone. “Get your fingers out of your mouth and stop mumbling, will you.”

 

“Is Duncan here?” Mickey squealed in a way that made me realize just how much I hated my mother. “I gotta see him. Is he here?”

 

He cowered in the doorway, looking three shades of pale. His whole body flinched away from my mother’s dominating pose.

 

“What is it, Mickey? What’s wrong?”

 

He had been crying.

 

“They messed up my house, Dunc. Everything’s all over the place. It’s all tored up like a hurricane hit.”

 

“Oh man. It’s okay. It’s okay.” I put an arm on his shoulder and he crumbled into me for just a split second…long enough for me to get my back up in preparation for the shot I figured my mother would send our way. But to her credit, she said nothing.

 

“We gotta go fix it, Duncan.”

 

“Okay. We will. Don’t worry about it. We’ll-”

 

“I hope this love parade is over soon, fellas,” she interrupted. She was never one to disappoint. I knew she couldn’t keep quiet. “I’d like to shut my door and get on with my life here.”

 

“I think we’re done here, anyway. Tell Dad good-bye.”

 

“Tell him yourself,” he said. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story? I didn’t come to the hospital to tell you about a little ledger full of dirty money, Duncan. There is more.”

 

“Later, Dad. We have to go.”

 

“His little simpleton is upset,” my mother said. “Can’t you tell they-”

 

I turned so violently in her direction that I cut her words off mid-flow. I think that was the closest I had ever come to hitting my own mother. Without another word, I tugged Mickey by the arm and led him to the car. Seconds later the front door slammed shut and my visit home was officially over.