Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? (23 page)

Is this schizophrenia? Vikström thinks not. If a person has no control over these shifts, it might be a bad sign, diagnostically. But if one could choose, then the shift would be hardly more significant than the daily changing of a necktie. Of course, people might be afraid of these shifts; they might cling to what they think is their true personality out of fear of being booted into the unknown. But Vikström doubts that the shifts would be sudden. In Manny's case, he gradually became drawn to karaoke, and, also gradually, a karaoke self joined his cop self. And Manny has other, lesser personalities, such as being a jokester and being fixated on beagle pups, which have nothing to do with singing and arresting bad guys.

Moreover, to be a karaokean can mean taking on another man's personality—someone like Frank Sinatra, Vaughn Monroe, or Prince. So Manny can first shift to his karaoke personality and then shift to his Elvis Presley personality or whoever. Manny's erratic behavior, Vikström decides, is simply a result of shifting to other levels of personality: Manny/cop/beagle lover/karaokean/Elvis. No wonder it's so difficult to catch the bad guys. Psychologically speaking, they have many places to hide.

Likewise, Angelina's disagreeableness and threats of physical violence don't come from being a New London housewife, far from it. They come from being an unfulfilled prom queen. And for Angelina to be a prom queen once in her life means to be a prom queen forever, which means being frustrated forever. Yet, to counter this behavior, she's also a beagle lover, which calls up a third personality: one that's sweet, generous, and loving.

These thoughts, which began as idle speculations for Vikström, now seem a pathway through life's byzantine corridors. Never mind that he's banging on the back doors of behaviorism. He's never heard of John B. Watson or B. F. Skinner; his ignorance in these areas remains as virginal as an uncut birthday cake. And the identity shifts that Vikström has diagnosed are not brought about by bed-wetting or sexual abuse. Rather, they're personality-driven choices intended to satisfy deficiencies we see as limiting our lives; they're reactions to those limitations. As for the rat that hits the little bar and gets a treat and then hits it again and gets another treat . . . well, the third time he might scamper to the back of his cage and think,
I'm fuckin' tired of being nickeled and dimed!
That's personality.

We might suspect a certain whimsy in Vikström's speculations, but the more he reflects, the more serious grow his thoughts, until he sits up so quickly that his cheap sunglasses slide down his nose.
And who am I?
he asks. Surely he's not the same person at home as he is at work. And he might have other personalities. If his fear of heights comes neither from his cop self nor from his domestic self, then perhaps he has a third self deep within him, a timid self who is too timid to confess his timidity and is a famous Swedish detective who hates heights.

This is as far as Vikström gets this afternoon. Having reached a scary place, he steps back from speculative thought for the day. Gratefully, he sees his partner leaving Angelina's house. Manny pauses in the doorway to clasp Angelina's hand: the karaokean and the prom queen. She leans forward to kiss his cheek. Vikström thinks he might vomit.

But let's continue our digression for a few moments more. If Didi Lobato were in the backseat of the Subaru, he'd tap Vikström's shoulder and explain about the tradiculous. It's not funny that Vikström has the subpersonality of a Swedish detective with a fear of heights. It's tradiculous.

So Didi would tell Vikström to relax. This business of shifting identities is as common as bunions. Look at Eartha and her implants, Vasco and his rented Rolex.
Where's the harm?
Didi might ask. But does Didi know who
he
is anymore? Might he think his identity is more authentic than Fidget's? That perhaps is the most tradiculous thing of all: Didi is convinced he's been spared this plague of shifting identities, as do others we've mentioned. But they're mistaken.

Even so, there are exceptions. This is why our own Vaughn Monroe is so worrisome to Connor, Didi, and Eartha. When asked who he is, Vaughn might say, “I used to be past-tense when I was nervous, but that was when necessity became the mother of convention and I let the gift horse sleep in the house. So I was forced to wrestle the toothy allegories, and today I'm a suppository of knowledge. No more soiled gold rings, I say! Illiterate the enemy!”

Vaughn's speech carries a patina of sense, which is more worrisome than actually making sense. And as Vaughn's words, those great communicators, turn to Jell-O, Connor might fear he's losing another degree of existential clarity. “Is it me?” he'd ask. “Am I the only one who can't understand him?”

So Vaughn is always Vaughn, and his apparent suprapersonality of Vaughn Monroe is merely glitter. Vaughn claims to be everyone and no one, to be all names and none. “After all,” he'd say, “the plausibilities are endless in a doggy-dog world.”

But Vaughn isn't the only person with a single personality. There's also Chucky, the oversize offensive-tackle type we've seen at the casino and who is Vasco's boss. In fact, he's boss of a bunch of people. This has nothing to do with seniority or rank. He's simply “Boss”—it's his job title, and if you disagree, he'll hurt you. Call him Mr. Pain. It's who he is when he wakes in the morning till he goes to sleep at night. He is a freelance pain distributor. So there's always a lot of space around Chucky, and people avoid eye contact.

We haven't seen much of Chucky, but he's out there. He's been strolling around and making his arrangements about Sal and Céline, maybe even about Fat Bob and Marco Santuzza. He's a worker, and he leaves a big footprint. So even if we haven't seen him, he's been busy. But he has a weakness. He loves gold. And when he ran up the stairs to Sal's office and found Sal's sprawled corpse with the plastic flower stuck in his forehead, he was seriously pissed that the gold was gone.

—

B
ut we've left Manny Streeter on Angelina's front steps as she's kissing him on the cheek, a platonic kiss. Before he turns away, they squinch their eyes at one another as a sign of nonphysical intimacy. Now Manny hurries to the Subaru, throws open the driver's door, jumps in, inserts the key, and fastens his seat belt.

This is when Vikström asks, “Have you ever thought that nobody's really what they seem?”

Manny freezes. “Run through that again?”

“I mean, you know, a person seems like one person and then seems like a second person and then seems like a third person and then—”

Manny half turns. “You calling me a hypocrite?” The Subaru's 2.0-liter turbo screams to indicate his outrage. In such a way is man linked to machine.

I
t shouldn't be thought that Manny spent all his time with Angelina talking about pups and karaoke. No, he also picked up useful bits having to do with their investigation, though both detectives feel, with a bit of chagrin, that the word “investigation” is an overstatement.

Backing out of Angelina's driveway, Manny laughs an unfriendly laugh. “Lisowski's telling the truth. He's been balling Angelina. So I say to her, ‘I didn't see any black-and-blue marks.' And she says, ‘I only leave marks where they don't show.' Poor Lisowski's a walking contusion. What I got around my black eye, he's got round half his body. So I says to her, ‘Was it hard to get Lisowski to steal Fat Bob's computer from Burnsie's office?' That surprised her. So I adds, ‘This's just between friends.' It's like fuckin' Shakespeare. She gives him a choice between ‘the delights of the bed'—her phrase—or get booted out the back door. And she tells him she'd also tell the cops, meaning us, that she saw him taking potshots at Fat Bob's Fat Bob till it blew up. So I ask her, ‘You been hiding Lisowski's pistol?' But she said no, and I believe her. So tell me, Benny, am I a genius or am I a genius?”

Vikström wants to say,
You were lying to her. You were leading her down the yellow brick road.
Instead he says, “You're a genius.” But the words leave a sour taste in his mouth.

“Another thing,” says Manny. “You know those bikes that been disappearing from Fat Bob's garage? Lisowski's been shopping them for Angelina. She's got the titles, so technically they're hers, even though she promised Fat Bob she'd keep them safe from the bank. But she says she wants to look like a prom queen again and that takes lots of expensive reconstruction. And this is the part I like: She's selling them cheap just to piss off Fat Bob even more.”

Vikström doesn't call Manny a genius again. He's distracted by the fact that his partner isn't driving into town toward the police station but toward I-95.

“Another thing, Caroline Santuzza called Angelina.”

It takes Vikström a moment to recall the name, but then he says, “What about?”

“First she tells Angelina that Giovanni Lambertenghi plans to shoot Fat Bob.”

“Who the fuck's Giovanni Lambertenghi?”

“Jack Sprat. What've you gone soft in the head? He's been zooming around town on a red scooter. We rousted him right on Bank Street.”

Vikström is more worried that Manny has pulled onto I-95 and is heading toward the bridge. But he manages to ask why Jack Sprat wants to kill Fat Bob.

“He thinks that Fat Bob set up Santuzza's death to get out of paying him the money he owed him. It makes sense, right?”

It's rush hour, and traffic is thick. Vikström sees the bridge looming in the near distance, as menacing as Godzilla in a reclining position. “But his bike was destroyed. It had to be worth fifteen grand.”

“Nah, he'll get insurance money for the bike. You closing your eyes, Benny?”

Vikström tightens his stomach muscles to ready himself for an attack of the phantom icy hand that's about to grip his guts. “No, no, of course not.” He tries to keep his voice calm, as if he were asking,
What's for lunch?

Manny's not fooled. He jerks the wheel to make the Subaru swerve. “I sure hope I don't crash over the side this time. Ha, ha, ha.”

Vikström's body is as tight as a miser's purse. “Was there a second thing?” To his right, way down in the troublesome waters, he sees the Long Island ferry setting out for Orient Point. He shuts his eyes.

“Yeah, Caroline said Marco had a visit a week ago from a big, bulky guy in a hoodie. She'd never seen him before, and Marco didn't introduce him. In fact, Marco told her to wait in the kitchen. It could be the same guy in the hooded sweatshirt who Dr. Goodenough saw jump out of the Denali and disappear, the guy who jumped out before the hit man.”

Vikström hardly pays attention. He's totally focused on the water down below. “Where the fuck we going?” He hears a pathetic squeak in his voice.

“Angelina says Fat Bob's got a biker friend named Otto who lives halfway to the casino on this side of Ledyard. That's where he's been staying. We'll be there in ten minutes. You okay?”

“Course I'm okay.” Vikström's eyes are shut tight. “Who said we could prowl around across the river? It's out of our territory.”

“Just want to take a peek, that's all.”

Angelina Rossi has told Manny that Fat Bob has an old high school chum—“a real loser”—who lives in a faded, postwar subdivision off Center Groton Road. “His name's Otto something, but you'll see his house. You can't miss it. It's up against the woods—a fixer-upper. Otto's been there forever.”

Vikström opens his right eye half a crack. “You think Fat Bob will be there?”

“It's a lead, that's all,” says Manny. “They're both bikers.”

“Half the world are bikers.”

Manny gives the Subaru another spiteful swerve. “Don't get all fuckin' philosophical on me, Benny! And stop that la-la-la shit!”

Recently Vikström has read that close to the country's biggest bridges live people who drive the terrified across those fragile structures spanning the abyss: Good Samaritans who offer their services for a price. But the I-95 bridge is too short to support such a career. What a pity.

The house, a bungalow, is on Hill Street. Rusted car parts decorate the dead grass. The trees are leafless, but an evergreen stands to the left of the driveway. It's still festooned with Christmas lights, as if Otto were keeping his hopes up. No car is in the driveway, but it might be in the garage. It's five-thirty, and the sun is going down.

Manny cuts his engine. “You want to take this one?”

“Let's do it together,” says Vikström, staring at the house.

“Makes you nervous, doesn't it? I don't blame you.”

“I'm not nervous. It's just part of our job description: doing things together.”

“It's not our business to do it together if we're outside city limits. I'll wait here. These banged-up bungalows are a little creepy.”

“What d'you mean, ‘creepy'?'

“There's a silence about them.”

Vikström listens. “What kind of silence?”

“You remember that poem about folks living lives of noiseless distraction?”

Vikström opens his mouth, then closes it. He climbs from the Subaru.

“Any last messages for the wife?”

“Fuck you,” says Vikström.

The subdivision is probably full of navy or ex-navy, stand-up guys who start drinking early in the afternoon. In the backyards of a few houses are small boats covered with blue tarps. Vikström walks to the front door. The roof's overhang sticks out about four feet from the house, to protect the postman from the elements when he delivers the bills and junk mail. Vikström rings the bell; he hears a tinkling from inside. He's nervous, and he knows he wouldn't be nervous if Manny had kept his mouth shut. He rings the bell again. In the front seat of the Subaru, Manny leans back as if to take a nap. Then Vikström glances at his feet, jumps, and nearly falls. He's been standing in a puddle of blood. Manny starts laughing from the car. Vikström calls to him, “There's blood here!”

Manny scrambles out of the car and hurries to the house. The pool of blood is mostly dry, about a foot long and shaped liked Florida without the panhandle. As he reaches the porch, a silver 159 Interceptor with a discreet light bar and a toothsome front crash bumper turns in to the driveway behind the Subaru. The car has no markings, but Vikström knows it right away. He takes his police ID from his jacket pocket. Manny turns, sees the state police car, and takes out his ID as well. A trooper in a gray Stetson gets out, his slow movements meant to show professional composure and superiority in the presence of local cops. His passenger gets out more quickly—a balding, middle-aged guy. His gray work shirt is spotted with blood, and his left arm is in a blue hospital sling.

“You catch 'em?” shouts the balding guy.

“You mean Fat Bob?” asks Vikström, still on the steps.

“No, not him, the other ones. Fat Bob lit out on his bike, straight through the backyards. Lucky he didn't get gagged on a clothesline.”

“You're Otto?” says Manny.

“Bob stayed here a few nights. I didn't know the cops were looking for him. 'Cross the river I don't hear nothing.”

The trooper stands looking up at the winter trees. He's nodded to the New London detectives to concede their legitimacy: a grudging nod. Manny thinks all troopers look the same. Maybe it's the hats. How do they tell one another apart?

“So where'd the blood come from?” asks Vikström. “What's going on?”

“I got pinked,” says Otto. He makes a gesture with his thumb over his shoulder toward the trooper. “He brought me back from the hospital.”

At ten o'clock that morning, a black Denali pulled in to Otto's driveway and tooted its horn. Fat Bob was asleep in a spare room, and Otto went out onto the porch. The driver got out and said he was looking for Fat Bob. “Nope,” Otto told him, “I haven't seen him for a coupla weeks.” Then the passenger got out. The men were around forty, nicely dressed and physically fit. Otto made a point of this. “They looked like they worked out a lot. I mean to start doing that myself. I'm a winter gainer, and my wife's repugnated by it.” Was there anything else that struck him? “They looked like guys who wouldn't care shit about a good joke.”

The men responded to Otto's statement about not seeing Fat Bob by saying they wanted to come in and look around.

“I told them, ‘No way.' They weren't official. I mean, they were just guys. Even if Fat Bob hadn't been inside, I wouldna let them in. Like, my house's my house, don't you think?”

Ignoring Otto, the men walked toward the porch. So Otto stepped inside to grab a shotgun. And why did Otto have a double-barreled shotgun leaning against the wall inside the door? So he said he always kept it there. He liked to play it safe.

When Otto stepped onto the porch again, he heard Fat Bob's motorcycle start up behind the house. The men ran back to the Denali. Brandishing his shotgun, Otto shouted at them to stop.

“Guy didn't give any warning. Just raised this pistol and fired. Startled me so much I pulled the trigger. I wasn't aiming or nothing. The shotgun kicked back out of my hand, and I did that.” Otto points up at the overhang to indicate a ragged hole about a foot and a half across. “So I went down. I didn't need to go down, like the bullet only hit my arm, but what's the point of staying on my feet? I mean, Fat Bob was already tearing through backyards on his hog. It wasn't like I was protecting him anymore. By the time the two guys got into the Denali, Bob was out on the road. Now I got this fucking hole in my overhang. You think insurance'll cover it?”

A neighbor called the cops, and soon three squad cars showed up.

“I hadn't meant to call them myself. Anyway, I'd nothing to say. Shit, my neighbor had more to say than me. He wanted to tell a whole story. He's like that. But he didn't get the plate number of the Denali, though he said it didn't look like Connecticut. And he couldn't say any more about the two men than I've said myself. A statie took me to the hospital, and a statie brought me back. They kept asking about that smash-up in New London, but I didn't know anything about it. They asked all sorts of shit, and after a while they got tired asking.”

“So what'd the two guys want?” asks Manny.

“They didn't tell me. They wanted Fat Bob, that's all.”

“What for?” asks Vikström. “Take a guess.”

“I figured Bob owes them money.”

“Who d'you think they're working for?” asks Manny.

“I figured they're working for themselves.”

“Nah, they're just soldiers,” says Manny as he taps Otto on the chest with one finger. “They work for someone bigger, someone big enough to make you keep a shotgun right beside the door. Give me a name.”

Otto looks stubborn. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Manny keeps insisting and Otto keeps denying until Vikström interrupts to ask Otto if he knew Milo Lisowski and the Hog Hurrah. Otto says he heard of the place but he'd given up his bike years ago after a crack-up. “Pitched into a ditch and busted a leg. You can't hang around a bunch of bikers if you're driving a Chevy. You start getting chilly looks. But Bob kept bitching about Lisowski, said he'd been taking his bikes, thinking Bob was going to get killed. Bob called it pillaging.”

By now it's dark. The state cop and his silver Interceptor are gone. Vikström gets Otto's last name—Schwartz—and a phone number. He asks Otto if he knows Marco Santuzza or Pappalardo or Jack Sprat. He doesn't. Otto says he only knows some navy guys. They play poker Wednesdays. Vikström and Manny look at one another—itself a rarity—and shrug. They know that Otto has another name he's not revealing: the man who'd hired the two guys in the Denali. They walk back to the Subaru. Both know they need to talk to the FBI guys, but it can wait till morning.

“Pillaging,” says Manny. “You can arrest a guy for that.”

—

W
hat's too much of a good thing? For Didi it's knowing that Angelina Rossi was called twice: once for Prom Queens Anonymous and then for Free Beagles from Nicotine Addiction. This might fall under the category of the tradiculous, but Angelina has acted suspiciously by asking Connor to return later. This fools nobody, and for Didi the police and the tradiculous fit together as nicely as thumbtacks and ice cream. So he decides to stop the phone calls until he thinks it's safe to continue.

It's Connor who brings the news that Angelina has been “double-dipped,” as Didi calls it. Neither Didi nor Eartha likes its possible consequences, while Vaughn says, “I find myself unable to associate myself with that thesis.” But it's not clear if this is agreement, disagreement, or something else. And since Vaughn sits on the floor with his back to them as he fusses with his yellow sheets of paper, it's not clear that his statement concerns the others at all. His short, peroxided hair gleams in the overhead light—a small light beneath the larger one.