Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? (15 page)

As for Mr. Ledbetter, one shouldn't think he never offers up some variation of topic. No, every session has its wrinkle, and today Mr. Ledbetter expresses a concern about his age and weight, both of which are advanced. The trouble with white bread, he tells the doctor, is that the bran and wheat germ have been removed from the flour, thus increasing the carbohydrates and lessening the number of vitamins and nutrients. In addition, to make the bread whiter, various flour-bleaching agents are added, like chlorine dioxide gas and potassium bromate. Mr. Ledbetter wonders if this is healthy. It might even hurt him. Should he stop? Otherwise he might collapse or fall down dead on the street.

The chance of Mr. Ledbetter's falling down dead fills the doctor with such pleasure that he utters a sigh. Then he sees another man at the street door to the upstairs offices, and it's the man who helped Fidget to his feet. This is someone the doctor doesn't recognize, but he's young, tanned, and dark-haired. He wears a gray suit, and the doctor even identifies his Bruno Magli shoes, because he has often yearned for a pair. This, of course, is Connor Raposo, who has learned the location of Sal Nicoletti's office and intends to confess to Sal that he has inadvertently blown his cover. It has taken Connor great courage to reach this point. It's a pity he's too late.

“Multigrain and sprouted wheat!” shouts Mr. Ledbetter, because he's noticed Dr. Goodenough looking out the window. “I need twelve-grain loaves: sourdough and pumpernickel and German dinkelbrot. But I don't like them.” He says the multigrain loaves are tougher than white bread, and the crumbs get into his undershorts and itch. “They've no give, no surrender.” Squeezing a multigrain loaf would be like squeezing a skinny old lady. “They lack the youthful zest. They're born stale!”

Dr. Goodenough's indifference is as weighty as a dead gorilla. Even if Mr. Ledbetter said he'd eaten toads, the doctor would only yawn. It's as if Mr. Ledbetter were no longer human, hardly mammal, and although the doctor is mildly shocked by his own lack of concern, he also feels a sense of release. Mr. Ledbetter could burst into flames and the doctor would only feel sympathy for the chair. Mr. Ledbetter stares at him, eagerly waiting for a response. Dr. Goodenough turns to the window.

He's in time to see Connor slam open the downstairs door, stumble, and nearly fall. Though his face doesn't express terror, it definitely expresses shock. He catches himself on a handicapped-parking sign, pushes his hands though his hair in unstudied frenzy, and runs down the street toward the train station.

“You're not paying attention to me, Doctor,” says Mr. Ledbetter sharply.

Dr. Goodenough looks back and raises one cautioning finger. “Please shut up.” He reaches for the phone. “I believe I must call 911.”

It's too bad that Dr. Goodenough has turned from the window, because he misses seeing the man with the hooded sweatshirt run across the street and enter Sal's building. However, it's unlikely the man does more than take a quick look, because a minute later he emerges from the building and disappears.

—

M
anny Streeter and Benny Vikström stand in front of Sal Nicoletti's desk and stare down at his corpse with the red plastic rose protruding from the middle of his forehead.
How disgusting,
thinks Manny.
How odd,
thinks Vikström.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” says Manny. “I don't find it funny.”

“Maybe it's a kind of signature,” says Vikström.

“Yeah, well, I still don't find it funny.”

“Maybe it's not meant to be funny,” says Vikström.

If Didi were here, he'd say the rose protruding from the bullet hole in the forehead is comic. And, if pushed, he'd add that comic is to funny what beautiful is to cute. One is not obliged to laugh at the comic. Living, Mickey Mouse is funny; dead, he's comic. In fact, Didi would say the rose in the bullet hole is tradiculous while still belonging to the middle range of event. No, no, we might argue: the manner of Sal's murder lies outside any middle range, as does murder plain and simple. But Didi says we reduce the width of the middle range to make life tolerable. We shrink it to exclude criminal behavior, perversion, cruelty, even poverty. We say those things belong to the extremes and so don't belong to us. Didi, however, is a militant generalist. He says that Orphans from Outer Space, Inc. and Toilets for the Indigent Left-Handed, Inc. are also part of the middle range and deserve our attention. After all, that expanded middle keeps him in business, just as it keeps Manny and Vikström in business.

Perhaps Vikström is correct and the rose is a signature. No doubt that it is the focal point of the entire room. It even seems to take precedence over Sal Nicoletti's dead body, and it is difficult for the detectives not to stare at it. Manny and Vikström don't know Sal, nor have they heard of Dante Barbarella. But they recognize Sal from the day of the accident, and he was someone they wanted to talk to. After all, he was suspected of giving the all-systems-go sign to Pappalardo to tromp on the gas and send his truck into the path of the onrushing Fat Bob motorcycle, ridden by Marco Santuzza. So he was more than a person of interest. But they have yet to instigate a serious search. They hadn't gotten around to it. Busy days can be like that.

Manny remembers something else about Sal from when he'd noticed him at the accident. He'd been wearing a number of gold chains.

“Where's the bling?” he asks.

Vikström wears rubber gloves, actually cheap plastic. He moves forward and steadies the corpse with a hand on his shoulder. Then he checks Sal's pockets.

After another moment he straightens up. “Where's the wallet?”

Dr. Goodenough has given the detectives a full description of what he'd seen: first it was Sal Nicoletti, then a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt had gotten out of the SUV and walked away, then came the man with the fedora, next came Fidget, and lastly came Connor Raposo. Sal Nicoletti had never emerged. The others had run from the building “like their tails were on fire,” the doctor said. He also said that when Fidget fell, he'd seen a flash of color in one of his hands like a yellow chain.

“Fuck me,” Manny says, “Fidget's got the bling.”

We said earlier that this Wednesday was for Fidget “the best of days and the worst of days, the luckiest of days and the least fortunate of days.” The moment before Manny said, “Fuck me, Fidget's got the bling” was the highest point of Fidget's good fortune. Now it descends.

“And the other guy,” says Vikström, “the one with the tan and wearing the gray suit. The one with expensive shoes. He's the guy who was talking to Nicoletti after the accident.”

The detectives are pleased to make such quick progress. As for the fellow with the fedora, for the time being they don't wish to think about him. The trouble with wearing a fedora and heavy black Ray-Bans is that they will be all a witness remembers, which was probably the point of wearing them.

Lost in this excitement is the man who got out of the Denali and walked away. Dr. Goodenough said the man had crossed the street and disappeared somewhere beneath him. But perhaps he didn't walk away.

—

T
he detectives remain in Sal's office or out on the street until the body is removed. One of the forensics guys takes the rose from Sal's forehead, and he is criticized for this, but of course there are pictures. Much time is spent seeking out fingerprints. This, basically, is a waste of time, because none will belong to the man in the fedora. The wall behind Sal's chair is a wide splatter of blood and tissue, which leads Manny to say that the killer used a hollow-point bullet. He then digs it out of the wall with a penknife and shows Vikström how it has mushroomed. The bullet is a metal dollop. The shell isn't found.

In the file cabinet are phone books, empty manila folders, and receipts that may show how Sal was spending his time. The computer is taken to police headquarters. In the belly drawer of the desk is a small pile of porn magazines, a box of tissues, a deck of cards, a pack of peppermint-flavored sugarless gum, and a few bills from Sal's landlord and the phone company (Verizon). Manny calls the landlord, telling him to come to the office. The other drawers contain only dust.

Manny and Vikström, with other police officers, talk to clerks and store owners up and down the street. A number of people saw the Yukon Denali, but they didn't pay attention to the license plate. One said it was from Massachusetts, another said from New York, another from Rhode Island, others from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Kansas. People also saw the man with the fedora and dark glasses—or rather, they recalled the fedora and nothing else except that the man was “average-sized” and perhaps wore dark glasses. One claimed it was a woman.

Many recalled Sal, who'd eaten in the restaurants and cafés or just walked around as if he had nothing to do, which, given the contents of his office, was probably the case. But no one talked to him—or at least did more than exchange brief remarks. Sal made it clear he didn't want to chat. In fact, he was unpleasant. But some also recalled the gold chains and the bracelet and rings. “Showing off on Bank Street,” says a man. “What a jerk.” No one saw him signal to Leon Pappalardo to drive backward, other than the lawyer who told Manny about it on Monday.

Many also knew Fidget, and five or six say they'd seen him on the street that day. One disagreeable man says it would be good for everybody if Fidget were put in jail. The panhandling lowered the tone of the street. “And what tone is that?” Manny asked. But the man had no answer. Police are on the lookout for Fidget and patrol cars are actively searching.

No one recalled the young man with the tan, but that changes when Vikström reaches the shoe-repair shop, where the cobbler recollects the Bruno Maglis. As for their owner, he was young, moderately handsome, and had a tan. He was also driving a small blue car, which had been blocked from leaving after the accident. Oh, yes, he had a claim ticket for the shoes: Connor Raposo, but no address or phone number. The cobbler also recollects that it was a rush job and the shoes were only brought in the previous Saturday. The man was from out of town and would be leaving again soon. “How far out of town?” asks Vikström. Maybe from California, says the cobbler. Maybe San Diego.

Reporters and TV people start arriving, and the crowd near the ambulance increases. Manny sees a red-and-black mackinaw, but not the face of the person wearing it. Does he guess that it's Jack Sprat? Maybe. The detectives stay quiet about the red plastic rose planted in Sal's skull. The information would create too much excitement, which makes for an atmosphere the detectives dislike.

I
n the afternoon Manny and Vikström drive over to Sal Nicoletti's house. They have gotten the address from Sal's landlord for the office. They need to tell Céline that her husband is dead. The passing on of such information is a job they never look forward to, and recently with Mrs. Santuzza's hysteria and Fat Bob's ex-wife's venom they've had enough of that business to last a while.

They arrive at the brick ranch house on Glenwood Place around four o'clock and trudge up to the door. Each waits for the other to knock, then they reach out together, then Manny pulls back and Vikström knocks. They wait. Then Manny knocks. The street is quiet except for a barking dog.

When the door opens, Manny grins at Vikström as if the knocking had been a competition and Manny has won. But then they focus on Céline, who stands before them in short shorts and a black T-shirt. Her jet-black hair hangs loosely over her shoulders. She doesn't speak or make any expression. She just waits.

Manny and Vikström show her their ID. “I'm afraid we need to talk to you,” says Vikström.

Still without speaking, Céline turns, and the two detectives follow her into the living room. It's not as if Manny and Vikström need to stare at her ass and legs; rather, there seems to be no other place to look, and looking feels both energizing and restful.
Tarty,
thinks Manny.
Stunning,
thinks Vikström. In both there arises a sense of melancholy, as if Céline's backside gave witness to what they have missed in life.

Céline turns to face them. “So how can I help you?” She's taller than Manny but not as tall as Vikström. She doesn't sit down, nor does she invite the detectives to sit down. The living room is attractive but uninspiring: beige carpet, beige couch, beige armchair, and an ocean scene with sailboats over the mantel. Soon the detectives will learn that every bit of furniture is rented, but at the moment they believe it represents Céline's aesthetic choices, and they find them disappointing.

“I'm afraid we've bad news for you,” says Vikström. “Your husband was killed earlier today. He was shot. We're terribly sorry.”

Céline's impassive expression doesn't change. Maybe her dark eyes open a little wider. She walks to a red leather purse on a coffee table. “At least I can now smoke in the house,” she says over her shoulder.

The remark strikes Vikström like a blow. He glances at Manny, who shrugs. Céline lights her cigarette with a silver lighter, inhales deeply, and then blows the smoke toward the ceiling. She wears bright red lipstick, which makes her wide mouth seem even wider.

“You'll have to identify your husband's body,” says Manny. To himself he calls her one tough cookie. The description opens a door in Manny's head. Behind it waits his disappointment. Beautiful women disappoint him, insipid rooms disappoint him, and Céline's answer disappoints him. He glances around for other things that disappoint and finds no shortage.

“He wasn't my husband,” says Céline.

Manny and Vikström raise their eyebrows in unison. “Your partner, then,” says Vikström.

“He wasn't my partner. He wasn't anything. The whole business is a sham. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. But I'll identify the body. My pleasure.”

Vikström ignores the possible pleasurable aspect of identifying Sal's body. “What do you mean, ‘a sham'?”

“The house is rented, the furniture is rented, the dishes and silverware are rented. Sheets, blankets, rugs, lamps, TV, Internet, cars—it's all rented. Even
I'm
rented, and also the kids and little dog. It's a sham, like I said.”

“But you were living with him,” says Vikström.

“But he didn't fuck me. He even offered me money, and I didn't let him fuck me. He was disagreeable, and he slapped me once. I don't allow that.”

“What'd he slap you for?” asks Manny.

“He caught me trying on his gold bracelet. He accused me of planning to steal it. It was too big for me anyway. I found him repellent.”

“Didn't he have any good qualities?” Vikström feels mildly sorry for Nicoletti.

Céline smiled. It was her first change of expression. But it wasn't a friendly smile. “He could make a good omelet.” She stubs out her cigarette in a green glass ashtray on a table by the couch. The filter is bright red from her lipstick.

“Jeez!” says Manny. He sits down on the couch. Fuck the invitation. He didn't need an invitation to sit down.

Vikström sits down to the left of Manny, whose arm rests on the back of the couch. For the first time that day, Vikström sees that Manny is wearing a Swiss Army watch with a white face, red bezel, and a black rubber strap. Without needing to look closer, Vikström knows that the model name is Maverick II. He knows this because he wears exactly the same watch. He's positive that Manny has purchased the watch to annoy him.

“So what's this all about?” asks Manny gruffly.

Céline runs a hand through her black hair. Then she shrugs. “The FBI put us here because Danny has to appear in federal court in Detroit in about a month. They thought he was in danger, so they invented this whole charade: the happy American family. I guess they didn't watch him closely enough.”

Manny and Vikström feel a sense of liberation. It will be the FBI's job to find whoever shot Sal Nicoletti. Manny and Vikström will be no more than domestic help. If they weren't policemen, they might giggle with pleasure.

“Why d'you call him Danny?” asks Vikström.

Céline remains standing. “Because that's his name: Danny or Dante Barbarella. He had a job in a Detroit casino. The FBI changed it temporarily to Sal Nicoletti. Danny liked it. He thought it was classy.”

They ask if Danny had any friends or acquaintances in the New London area. No. Do they know their neighbors? No. Did he invite anyone over to the house? No. Then Céline raises a hand.

“A man drove him home from downtown on the day of the accident, but he didn't come into the house. And he came back yesterday looking for Danny, but Danny wasn't here. He said his name was Connor. He drove a blue Mini-Cooper.”

“What'd he look like?” asked Manny.

So Céline described Connor Raposo: handsome, mid-twenties, dark hair, dark eyes, straight nose, narrow face, tall and thin. “And he had a tan,” Céline adds.

Who is this fucking guy with the tan?
thinks Manny. “Anything else?”

“Danny said he asked too many questions. And he kept looking at me. He liked what he saw.” She says this without expression.

Céline stands above the two detectives with her hands on her hips. Her black T-shirt seems too small for her. Maybe it shrank in the wash. With her black shorts and T-shirt, Manny thinks she looks like a sexy ninja.

“I bet,” said Vikström. “Was he rude or anything?”

“He was fine—just a polite guy working up an infatuation.”

Manny and Vikström are quiet as they think about that.
Strumpet,
thinks Manny.
Still gorgeous,
thinks Vikström.

“He ever get any phone calls?” asks Manny.

“Not really. Well, he got one Monday night. I answered Sal's cell phone. I thought he was going to slap me for that as well. He didn't like anyone calling him. The man said his name was Leon. When Sal took the phone, I could hear this guy yelling at him, but I didn't hear any specific words.”

“Did Sal say anything?” asks Vikström.

“He kept saying it was an accident, that it wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't know what he was talking about.”

But Manny and Vikström knew what Leon was talking about, and the next day Leon was dead.

“What about his office?” asks Manny. “He say anything about people in the offices next to his?”

Céline thinks for a moment. “He mentioned the man in the front office. He called him Marco.”

“What did he say about him?”

“Same thing he said about everybody. He called him a jerk.”

“He's the guy who was killed on Monday. Did he mention that?” asks Vikström.

Again Céline's eyes widen slightly. “He didn't say anything about it. I heard it on television.”

“Sal wear much jewelry?” asks Manny. “Someone saw a homeless guy come tearing out of the building and drop a gold chain on the sidewalk.”

“Was Sal wearing any when you found him?” asks Céline.

“Nothing at all. Even his wallet was missing,” says Vikström. “That's why we thought the homeless guy might have taken more than a single chain.”

Céline lights another cigarette. “Sal wore some, but nothing too flashy. A couple of chains, a couple of rings, perhaps the gold bracelet I mentioned.”

“Someone said he wore a Rolex,” says Vikström.

Céline laughs her humorless laugh. “Yes, he got it cheap. He liked to brag about how cheap. It was made in China.”

“Is there other stuff still in the house?” asked Manny.

“Not much. Maybe some cuff links. He usually wore what he had. Maybe there's another chain, I don't know.”

Vikström isn't sure she's telling the truth. “And that was it?”

“As I say, he didn't want to call attention to himself.”

Manny decides to change the subject. “Why'd you agree to come out from Detroit?”

“The money was good. I needed the money.”

“What's that make you?” asks Manny. “Living out here with a guy for money.”

“Practical,” says Céline with a straight face.

Manny and Vikström consider this. Both have conflicting ideas about the word “practical.” Manny thinks,
Gold digger.
Vikström thinks,
Provident.

“Anything else before we go downtown for the ID?” asks Vikström.

“There's something I'd like you to take with you. I don't want it in the house.” Céline leaves the room.

“For Pete's sake,” says Vikström. “You practically called her a whore.”

“So what? She didn't blink. I bet she's turned tricks for cash in her time.”

“Watchit!” shouts Vikström.

Manny and Vikström leap upward from the couch with their hands on their weapons. They move surprisingly quickly for middle-aged men.

“Fuck me!” says Manny. “She's going to kill us!”

Céline has reentered the living room carrying a pump-action shotgun loosely in her left hand.

Vikström shouts, “Drop that immediately!”

Manny has drawn his Glock 22 and hopes he won't shoot himself in the leg.

Céline slowly puts the shotgun down on the rug and steps away. “Danny had that. I don't want it in the house.”

“Where'd it come from?” asks Manny. He can see it's a Winchester 1200 with a twenty-inch barrel. He used to have one at home but sold it when he was building his karaoke box.

“Danny brought it from Detroit in case someone came looking for him.”

The detectives have a sudden image of the rose sticking out of Sal's forehead. Vikström takes a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and picks up the shotgun. He sniffs the barrel. “It's been fired not long ago.”

“Poppaloppa,” says Manny. “That Rhode Island statie is going to be as happy as a pig in shit. What was his name? Rocky, Rocky something.”

“Woody Potter.”

“You sure it wasn't Rocky?”

“Positive.”

“Rocky, Woody, what's the difference? We solved his case for him.”

Vikström doesn't want to agree, but he sees no reason not to. He turns to Céline. “I guess we don't know your last name.”

“Gaurige.”

“Is it Greek?” asks Manny.

“Greek enough.”

Neither finds this a satisfactory answer.

“Okay,” says Manny. “Grab your coat. We're outta here.”

—

I
t may be easily understood that when Connor Raposo fled Sal's office after seeing his corpse with a red plastic rose emerging from its forehead, he was not at his best. Shock, panic, and fear wrestled for emotional domination, while guilt, regret, and shame—the smaller fellows—jumped up and down to be noticed. If Connor were a Navy SEAL, he could laugh it off, but the closest he has ever come to a military connection was fifteen years ago when he was a Cub Scout. Once on the sidewalk, he knows that if he runs, he'll attract attention, but his hurried walk is on the cusp of a gallop.

The Mini-Cooper is parked twenty yards up Bank Street just across from the Exchange, where Connor had lunch and talked to Fat Bob, not knowing he was Fat Bob. On his way to his car, he passes several mildly startled people to whom he gives a rictus grin and gasps, “I'm late, I'm late.”

Connor drives quickly to the granite-and-brick post office four blocks away, pulls in to a parking slot, cuts the engine, and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. Having a dozen thoughts clamoring for your attention is like having a dozen big people trying to crowd into an already crowded elevator—that's how it seems to Connor. He wonders if he can think himself into oblivion, but his temporary parking space is only good for fifteen minutes. Still, he attempts to regulate his breathing.

We've already said that Connor has had no experience with the rough side of life: guns, gangsters, and brutal behavior. This, for him, is TV stuff. It's beyond the pale, meaning on the other side of the fence. But what is this fence? Most likely it means beyond the middle range of event that Didi often talks about. In Didi's expansion of the middle range, Sal's murder fits as nicely as a pebble in a pig's snout.

But Connor isn't interested in nihilistic philosophies. In the past few days, many appalling images have shouldered their way into his brain. And how can he make sense of them when their sensational aspects disrupt what he calls his rational thinking?

Yet when a brief gap occurs in his confusion, like a bit of blue sky among a mass of clouds, all he can think is,
I've caused this!
He's sure Sal is dead because of what he told Vasco. And Vasco then sold the information. How simple. Connor had been unable to keep his mouth shut because he wanted to impress his fucking brother! As he thinks this, he slowly bumps his head against the steering wheel, but not hard enough to be painful. It's not pain he wants; it's new thoughts. This is Connor's education into the dark side, and future lessons will inform him that Sal's apparent two children are rentals and his wife Céline is not his wife but a high-priced escort. That's the trouble with education: it keeps bullying us with further unwanted information. No wonder political conservatives want to close the schools. Their wish is for a pre-Snake world, to return to those happy days of scratching one's balls. Good fucking luck, as the late Sal might say.