Saving Room for Dessert (8 page)

Now why’d Nowicki put me down here again? Didn’t I have enough grief yesterday? He knows I did, the man knows I had enough
grief with these people to last me two careers. Had enough last night to last me the next ten years.

These people. She-it. Niccola Scavelli and his seriously ugly wife, Mary Rose. Occupants of 101 Franklin Street on the corner
of Bryan, yessir, if ever there were two people fit the description of “occupants” these two were it. These two people were
not the work of amateurs, no thank you ma’am; these two were seriously fucked up by some heavyweight pros. Been to this house
twice a year—at least twice—every year since I’ve been in this department. And when they hand me that piece of paper says
I have been promoted to sergeant, and that other one says I have been promoted to detective, I am still goin’ be comin’ to
this address till these crazy motherfuckers kill each other or go into a nursin’ home, whichever comes first, a-men. Motherfucker
oughta be in Mamont right now, many times as I carried his sorry ass up to Mental Health? Catch the dago by the toe, eenie
meenie minie mo, hold him a month and let him go, eenie meenie minie mo. She-it. Three times now. Motherfucker is stone craaaaa-zy.
But not at his hearings, oh no. At his hearings he’s cool as Johnnie Cochran. But yesterday? The man stone topped out. With
all that fries shit?…

“Sir, did you smear dog crap all over Mr. Hlebec’s doorknobs?”

“Do you want fries with that?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said do you want fries with that?”

“Sir, try to answer my question—”

“I’ll answer your question when you answer my question—do you want fries with that or not?”

“No, sir, I do not want fries with that. Or with anything else either.”

“Alright, now we’re goin’ places. Hey, Mary Rose? Hold the fries!”

Mary Rose, hold the fries, Jesus Christ. And last month it was let me take this blow-dryer and go sit in my truck and point
it at Mr. Matthew Hlebec and Mrs. Ann Hlebec when they come home from work, and shout how they’re exceeding the walkin’ speed
limit when they get out their cars and walk up on their porch. And write everything down, oh yeah, get it all recorded, absolutely,
in my little notebook here, times, days, dates, speed of feet on the radar blow-dryer and how many times have they changed
lanes without putting on their turn signals and how many times has she tailgated, walked too close to her husband for conditions
… aye-yi-mother-fuck-ing-yi, where do these people come from? More important, where they goin go? Lord, please say they ain’t
goin’ be with me forever. Please say they ain’t my special honky hell. I need to get Mrs. Romanitsky down here, have her pray
for these motherfuckers, maybe she knows somebody do an exorcism or some shit, ’cause Lord, you got to know ain’t nothin’
else worked. Worked, workin’, or goin’ work. Lord, when it comes to these two, you got a ton to answer for.

Ohhhh man, look there, now why didn’t I stay off this street, what’s that motherfucker goin’ do now? What’s he carryin’? Oh
shit. A shovel? Motherfucker got a shovel? Oh mannnnnn!

Rayford pushed the button for his PA. “Mr. Scavelli, put that down, sir! Don’t go there, sir.”

Oh man, here we go again, sure as God made dog shit, that motherfucker got a shovel full, ohhh got-damn.…

Rayford jammed the foot brake and rammed it into park, hustled out to get in front of Scavelli, who was walking sideways with
the shovel angled out to his right and behind him, getting ready apparently to hurl its contents onto the front porch of the
Hlebecs’ house.

“Stop right there, sir! Don’t do that!”

“According to the prophecy, to the ass from where it came out, it shall go back.”

“Sir, put the shovel down, sir. I’m orderin’ you to stop. Sir, if you throw that over my head, and some of that fall on me?
I’m goin’ be really upset, sir. I’m goin’ be seriously disturbed. I washed this uniform and pressed it myself, I do not want
even one molecule of that crap on it, you hear? Sir? Stop right there, and put that down!”

“According to the prophecy, the coloreds will not tell the Italians, the Italians will tell the coloreds, that’s the way it
was in the beginning, that’s the way it shall always be.”

Ohhhh God, here we go with the coloreds again.

“Sir, I have told you before and I’m goin’ tell you again how we are all brothers and sisters, how we all came out the same
tribe in Africa, some of us headed north, some of us headed south, some east, some west, but we are from the same mother and
father—”

“According to the prophecy, the coloreds will wash out their mouth with soap when they tell lies—”

“Aw enough with this prophecy noise—gimme that shovel! Now, sir! I’m orderin’ you, give me that shovel!”

Scavelli screwed up his face haughtily and tried to hand it over blade end first.

“Aw that’s cute,” Rayford said, recoiling from the stench. “Turn it around, sir. Please?”

Scavelli turned sideways, sidled up to Rayford, and handed it over without further fuss.

“There. Now that wasn’t so hard, huh? Was that so hard?”

“According to the prophecy, the coloreds will carry dog shit for the Italians,” Scavelli said, turning and shuffling back
toward his house.

Rayford carried the shovel, a third full of fresh dog droppings, to the storm drain on the corner and hurled the contents
into it. He took the shovel back to Scavelli’s house, pushed it into the strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk
a couple of times to clean it as much as possible and then tried to hand it up to Scavelli, who was now on his porch. Scavelli
closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his bony chest, and thrust his chin upward.

Rayford slid the shovel past Scavelli’s feet and turned around in time to see Matt Hlebec attempting to park his maroon Chevy
Beretta in the space between the MU and Scavelli’s multicolored Ford pickup. There wasn’t enough room so Rayford hurried to
his MU waving to Hlebec and indicating to him that he was going to move. Just as he got in, he saw Scavelli coming down the
porch steps with his blow-dryer pointed at Hlebec.

Oh shit, here we go with the blow-dryer again, Rayford thought, backing up and out into the street so Hlebec could park and
then getting back out to be ready to intervene as soon as these two started in on one another.

Hlebec came out of his Chevy yelling and gesturing first at Rayford and then at Scavelli. “Well good, I don’t have to call
you guys, you’re already here, now you can see what I’m talkin’ about—”

Rayford couldn’t help noticing that as soon as Hlebec spoke, his dog came alive inside his house, jumping up on a wing chair
in the living room, shoving aside the curtains with his snout, and barking, then bounding away. In a moment he was back on
the chair, his paws on one wing, barking again, and then bounding away again.

“Just go in your house, sir, please?” Rayford said, watching the dog pushing the curtains around with its snout.

“My radar gun is new and improved. Not only measures speed, now it measures noise. When he talks he’s louder than a chain
saw—”

“Oh shut the hell up!”

“I’m not the one with the big mouth, that’s you. I’m not the one with the dog runs loose all over my yard, craps in my yard—in
violation of the city ordinance.”

“My dog’s in the house all day, he never runs loose, how many times you think I have to tell him before it finally sinks in,
huh? I walk my dog on a leash, my wife walks the dog on a leash, you been seein’ us do that for ten years, you maniac—”

“Mr. Hlebec, sir, just go inside, please?”

“This is a public street, I’m comin’ home from work, I’m allowed to walk into my house without bein’ hassled by this asshole—”

“Sir? How many times have we been through this? Go inside, sir. Please!”

“Oh yeah, with the hunky, yeah, please this, sir that—what do the Italians get, huh?
I’m orderin’ you
—that’s what we get! The coloreds give us orders! But the hunky gets pleeeeeease, please please please, pretty please, oh
yeah!!

“Mr. Scavelli, go inside, please, I don’t want a repeat of yesterday, sir. Please? Go inside, sir.”

“According to the prophecy, I’m on my property, I’m allowed to be right here, right where I am.”

“Yes sir, according to
your
prophecy, that’s true. But according to
my
prophecy, you’re not allowed to stand out here and instigate a fight, verbal or otherwise, so go inside please.”

“Coloreds don’t have no prophecy. All you got is jungle music. All you people know how to do is scratch records, you don’t
even know how to play ’em.” Scavelli tried to imitate a rapper scratching an LP record on a turntable while huffing and grunting
and jiggling from side to side.

The man looked so ridiculous Rayford had to turn his face away to keep from laughing.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am you’re here to listen to this yourself.”

“Heard it all before, Mr. Hlebec, you know that—”

“No no, uh-uh, what I mean is you’re hearin’ him right from the start, not from when you get here after my wife calls you—”

“Been respondin’ to these addresses, sir, for six years now. I’ve taken Mr. Scavelli to Mental Health three times myself,
and you’ve testified at all three of his hearings, Mr. Hlebec, let’s not forget the facts, okay? So now whyn’t you go inside,
sir, please?”

“’Cause my wife’s comin’ home, should’ve been here already, I don’t know what’s keepin’ her, but I don’t want him harassin’
her. He starts in on her as soon as she gets outta the car—”

“If you went inside, sir, it would help considerably, okay?”

“Help you maybe. Not her.”

Rayford took a deep breath and blew it out and watched the curtains being shoved aside once again, this time with only the
tip of the dog’s snout showing. The dog barked four times in a row, then apparently stopped and jumped down again when he
couldn’t toss the curtain aside.

How long were these people goin’ stand here? How long am I goin’ stand here? She comes home, shit’s really goin’ fly—and,
aw motherfucker, here she comes now. How’m I goin’ get these two assholes inside now?

Rayford stepped carefully, unobtrusively, between Hlebec and Scavelli, while remaining at least three steps away from Hlebec.
Scavelli had moved to the bottom step of his porch.

Hlebec was a large man, six feet two, two-forty, maybe two-fifty, who’d been a defensive lineman in high school and college
and who coached the defensive linemen at Rocksburg High while working as a supervisor in a food warehouse. He’d never been
violent in any of these confrontations, but Rayford was absolutely convinced everybody has a cracking point, so he never failed
to maintain his reaction distance from Hlebec, no matter what Hlebec’s history.

“Sir? Mr. Hlebec? Please go inside before your wife gets here, okay?”

“Tell
him
go inside, don’t tell me! He wants to know whose dog craps in his yard, all he has to do is go in the back and look that
way, he knows whose dogs are runnin’ loose. He knows it’s not ours. But we’re the ones suffer for it. Go ask the Hornyaks
they ever had shit smeared on their doors. Ask the Buczyks. Five dogs they got between ’em. They’re the ones don’t keep their
dogs tied, they’re the ones just open the door and let ’em run, I walk my dog on a leash—”

“Sir, I know all this—”

“If you know it, why don’t you arrest ’em? They’re the ones violatin’ the ordinance, not me. You wanna see it? I got a copy
inside. All you gotta do is write ’em a ticket, hand it to ’em. Three-hundred-dollar fine. Plus costs! That’s what it’s supposed
to cost ’em. But it never does ’cause you guys never write ’em up. They had to pay a coupla times, maybe they’d tie their
dogs up, huh? You think? And maybe he’d stop hasslin’ us. Ask him why he don’t hassle them, go ’head, I wanna hear what he
has to say—”

“Sir, we did that last night, remember? And where’d it get us?”

Mrs. Hlebec parked her Chevy Cavalier, got out shaking her head, and hurried toward her husband with her hands over her ears.
’I don’t wanna hear it, old man, don’t you start with me, I’m telling you. If he starts with me with that blow-dryer again,
I’m gonna scream!”

Rayford sniffed and licked his lips. “Please, Mr. Hlebec, take your wife inside, please—”

“Exceeding the walking speed limit by two miles an hour—”

“C’mon, Annie, don’t pay him no attention, c’mon—”

“How much proof you need she’s a reckless walker, huh? Can’t you coloreds see the evidence? What, it’s only evidence if Johnnie
Cochran says so? If it don’t acquit, you must convict.”

“It’s if it don’t fit, you must acquit, asshole,” Matt Hlebec said.

“Can’t you get anything right?”

“Tell me he didn’t do the doorknobs again. Please tell me I don’t have to do what I did last night, please tell me that.”

“No no no, he didn’t do that, huh? Rayford, he didn’t do that, did he? Why you here, Rayford? Who called you?”

“Nobody called me,” Rayford said. “I’m here because I saw him with a shovel headin’ for your porch and I stopped him, okay?”

“A shovel? He had a shovel? What was he gonna do with a shovel?”

“Ma’am, please, you and your husband just go inside and let me do my job here, okay? I can’t handle him if you two stay out
here jawin’ at him, okay?”

“What, we’re not allowed to be on our own sidewalk? In front of our own house?”

“Yes you are, ma’am, but I can’t get the man off a boil if you’re standin’ here agitatin’ him.”

“Oh
we’re
agitating him now. Right? Us? I guess we’re the ones smeared crap all over our own doorknobs, is that right?”

“No ma’am, what I said is, your presence out here is enough to agitate him and as long as you’re out here I can’t get him
calmed down, so I’m askin’ you once again, please go inside.”

“Well excuse me but that is
not
what you said—”

“Well that’s what I meant, ma’am, even if it didn’t come out that way, that’s what I meant, okay?”

“Well you ought to say what you mean, especially if you’re gonna start accusing people.”