13 Hangmen (11 page)

ony's cell phone hooted once, like a cuckoo clock. (He hadn't quite figured out the ringtones yet.) “Hang on a sec,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket and flipping it open. Julia had sent him a text:
No update on Dad. How's tour? Solving any crimes?
He thumb-typed her back:
Working on it.

“What are you doing?” Angelo said.

“Sending a quick message,” Tony said, holding up his phone.

“I don't see anything,” Angelo said.

Oh right. Angelo couldn't see Tony's comforter or Snoop Dogg poster either. “Never mind,” Tony said, shoving the phone back into his pocket. “Where were we?”

“How much I hate Benny Hagmann.”

“Yeah, well at some point the two of you bury the hatchet
and become best buddies,” Tony said. “Because he eventually ends up looking after you in your old age. Which is why you decide, at one point, to leave him this house.”

“Not in a million years,” Angelo said.

“Why not?” Tony said. “People change.”

“Not the Hagmanns,” Angelo said. “Benny and his friends call me Hootie instead of Angelo on account of my glasses, and
Wop
oriti instead of Saporiti because they hate all the Italian kids at school.”

Tony refrained from commenting that Angelo had also reminded
him
of an owl, animal totem–wise.

“Plus Benny's father also happens to be Cyril Hagmann, Mama's mortgage collector.”

“Cyril the Squirrel?” Tony said.

“Who made a special trip back here this morning to serve that eviction notice on Mama. And Benny tagged along, just so he could see my face. According to Cyril, if Mama chose to cook for half the Red Sox rather than pay her bills, she deserved to lose this house. He said the police would soon be escorting her off the premises, the bank would be putting Number Thirteen up for public auction, and he would be snapping it up himself for a bargain price. But nobody gets the best of Mama. She just turned the tables on him.”

“How?” Tony said.

According to Angelo, Mama merely held the eviction notice up to Cyril's face, tore it to shreds, and showered it over his head like confetti. She reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a wad of cash, and slapped it into Cyril's hand. All paid up, she said. See you next month. By the way, your kid's fly is down. She then slammed the door in both their faces. After a good laugh, Angelo asked Mama where she suddenly got the money. Solly Weinberg, she said. He pulled her aside in the kitchen during the birthday dinner. At first she refused to take it. She didn't believe in charity—that was why she ran a boardinghouse—but Solly insisted. He'd made a pact when he turned thirteen never to let Cyril's father, Chester Hagmann, get his hands on the place. Mama would be doing him a favor by accepting a loan. He just hoped she and Angelo would make the same vow never to let a Hagmann set foot in the house. Which was exactly what they did then and there.

“So there's no way I would just up and give it to him,” Angelo concluded. “Ever.”

“That's weird,” Tony said. “Old Man Hagmann made this big point earlier of telling me he didn't even
want
Number Thirteen, since he already owned the house next door.”

“My foot,” Angelo said. “If any family is obsessed with getting its greedy paws on the place, it's the Hagmanns.”

“There's something fishy here,” Tony said.

“Very fishy,” Angelo agreed.

“I wonder why,” Tony said. “I mean, it's not
that
nice.”

“You think maybe Solly knows?” Angelo said. “I could ask him when I get to Fenway this afternoon. Wait, no I can't. He's probably on a train headed for California.”

Tony wandered over to the pawcorance. He stared at Ted Williams's cap, still resting on the spiral. “Maybe there's another way to ask Solly.”

“What? Conjure him up like you did with me?” Angelo said.

“Didn't he tell you he lived here himself till he was twenty-one and joined the team?” Tony said.

Angelo grinned. “I guess I'm going to be a little late for the game.”

“I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with Cronin,” Tony said.

“More trouble, you mean,” Angelo said. “The press found Williams at my house.”

“So how do we do it?” Angelo said. “Conjur up Solly, I mean.”

“We need an object that connects him to you.”

“What about this?” Angelo said. He tapped the
27
on the right sleeve of his jersey. “Mama sewed it on for me last night, but it would be easy enough to pull it off.”

“Let's give it a try,” Tony said.

As soon as Angelo had plucked off the patch, Tony suggested he place it on the spiral next to the cap—since he had the most direct connection to Solly. This Angelo did. They both looked around the room. Nobody.

“Wave your hand over the spiral,” Tony said. Angelo did. “Feel any static electricity?” Angelo shook his head. “Hear any voices?” Nope.

They both took a seat on the bed.

They waited. They waited. They waited. Nothing.

“So if you're from the future, I guess you already know whether Williams agrees to play in today's game against the Tigers.”

Tony nodded. “You told me yourself last Thanksgiving.”

“What did I say?”

“The Sox swept the whole series. They took the lead over the Yankees. But it didn't help much. The Yankees came right back, even without Gehrig. At the end of the season, the Sox still ended up second, trailing the Yankees by something like seventeen games.”

“What about Williams?”

“He was the team's star player, leading the league in RBIs,” Tony said. “In fact, he played for the Sox his entire career—the Boston fans ended up loving him—and he turned out to be one of the greatest players of all time. Two-time Most Valuable
Player of the American League, two-time winner of the Triple Crown, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966. To this day he holds the record for the highest career batting average of any player with five hundred or more home runs.”

“And Solly?” Angelo said, obviously impressed. “Is it true he never ends up having much of a baseball career?”

Tony confessed he had never even heard of Solomon Weinberg.

“What about me?” Angelo said. “Do I ever play professional ball?”

An awkward moment of silence. Tony didn't know
what
Zio Angelo ended up doing once he moved away from Boston at the age of twenty-one. But he was pretty sure it wasn't pro ball. Otherwise Zio Angelo would have told Tony all about it at Thanksgiving. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing you kept secret.

Angelo sighed. “It's because of my glasses, isn't it?” he said. “They get so darned fogged up when I run.”

“At least you're not too fat to play,” Tony said. “My brothers Mikey and Angey call me Ton-of-Bricks. They're twins.”

“I used to be just as fat as you,” Angelo said.

“How did you drop the weight?” Tony said.

“I stopped eating so much,” Angelo said.

“Easier said than done.” Tony sighed.

“Tell me about it,” Angelo said. “Mama's constantly shoving
food at me. It's how Italian mothers show their love. I always ate whatever she put on my plate, without even thinking about it.”

“So what did you do?” Tony said.

“I just started thinking about it,” Angelo said. “I realized the trick is to stop eating as soon as you no longer feel hungry. If you wait until you feel full, you've already eaten way too much.”

Tony pondered this. In truth, he never stopped eating until he felt
pain
.

“Plus you gotta exercise. Do calisthenics and stuff. That's what the Sox do to trim down during spring training,” Angelo said.

“Like jumping jacks?” Tony said.

“And sit-ups and squat thrusts,” Angelo said. They lapsed into a silence. “Too bad there's
nothing
I can do about my eyesight.” Angelo sighed.

Tony wandered back to the pawcorance. He jiggled the
27
patch on the spiral. Still no static. Still no voices. Nothing. Something wasn't right.

His phone cuckooed with another message. He pulled it out. Julia again:
Dad update. Head home asap!
He texted back:
On my way
.

“You're doing it again,” Angelo said.

“Sorry,” Tony said. “I've got to go. Mom's got news about Dad.”

“Just as well,” Angelo said. “The later I am, the madder
Cronin is going to get. Should we try again when I get back from Fenway?”

They both decided to leave the cap on the pawcorance, to make it easier to connect with each other as they came and went.

“I guess I'll see you later,” Tony said, heading for the door.

“Like in about seventy years,” Angelo said.

They both started giggling like idiots.

Tony tiptoed down to the foyer. He could hear Julia's voice echoing from garden level. She was telling the twins to roll up the linoleum flooring in the mother-in-law room while she heated up the leftover pizza for lunch. He slipped out the front door. He had a good ten minutes to kill to make his walk home from the History Mystery Tour at all plausible to the twins. He wandered over to the grassy oval in the center of Hangmen Court. That was one ginormous oak tree. He wondered if he'd ever be thin enough to climb it. All sorts of graffiti had been carved into its trunk: lovers' hearts with people's names inside,
Don't Tread on Me!
, swear words, S
ave the Union!
, people's initials,
Stop Hitler!,
years of graduating classes,
U.S. out of Vietnam!
, peace signs,
U.S. out of Iraq!
, smiley faces. Tony's eye caught on one heart in particular:
Antonio + Isabella. Vero amore.
His Italian wasn't great, but the heart sort of said it all.

Benedict Hagmann was full of it.

“I'm home!” he called, letting himself in the front door.

“We're in the kitchen,” Julia called back.

Tony headed down there. Lunch was indeed leftover pizza and salad. Julia made room for him next to her on the bench in the eating nook. Even though she was trying to act normal, Tony could tell by the line between her eyebrows that it was only an act.

“Where's Dad?” Angey said.

“At the lawyer's,” Tony lied. “The paperwork wasn't quite ready when he got to Birnbaum's office this morning. He decided to go on the tour with me first, then circle back. He said he'll text Mom when he's done.”

Julia handed him a paper plate with two slices of pizza on it.

“Just one,” Tony said. “And some salad.”

“Too many Snickers bars?” Mikey snorted.

“You
want
me to stay fat, don't you?” Tony said. “Because it makes you feel all superior. Well, sorry to disappoint you.”

Angey looked over, surprised.

“How about we try to have a meal that doesn't involve a fight?” Julia said. She nonetheless squeezed Tony's knee under the table. “How was the tour?”

Tony didn't get a chance to answer. The front doorbell rang. “I'll go,” Angey said. He ducked out the door beneath the stoop to see who it was.

“Nice job, by the way, weaseling out of moving all that furniture onto the back deck,” Mikey said. “Don't worry, the real fun begins this afternoon with floor sanding.”

Angey returned with the cable guy.

“Finally,” Mikey said. “What took you so long?”

The cable guy stared at him blankly.

“Why don't you two show him which rooms need data ports?” Julia said to the twins. “You're almost finished, and Tony just sat down.”

“Follow me,” Angey said to the cable guy.

“I hope you brought plenty of extra cable this time,” Mikey said.

Together they led him up to parlor level.

Finally Julia was able to give Tony a quick update. The police had let Michael make one phone call at noon. He'd told her he'd spent the entire morning being interrogated at the station, first by one detective, then the other. But they were not letting him go until both detectives met with the coroner who had examined Zio Angelo's body and signed his death certificate. Meantime, Michael was still being held in the interrogation room for further questioning. Birnbaum was trying his best to find him a good criminal lawyer, since he only did estate planning himself.