W
e got the biggest tree we could find down at St. Luke’s that Christmas, a Scotch pine, full all the way round, with a good stem at the top for the old glowing star which Wanda and I had bought about ten years ago and which every year we debated about throwing out or hanging on to for one more year. Wanda always talked me into keeping it, and this time I didn’t put up much of a fight. I was just so damned glad to have them back, I didn’t want anything to screw it up.
What happened was that at the Mass for Dog I’d almost lost it. I got through the Latin part just fine, but when the Father started in with his speech about how Dog was a “loving and good provider, a beloved neighbor and friend,” I felt like someone had put wires in my arms and legs. I wanted to leap out of the pew and scream, “It was me! I was his best friend and I got him killed.” But just then Wanda grabbed my hand, and I held on to her tight, sagging in my seat.
She, Ace, and I went to the funeral together, too, along with her mother Ruth. We stood together and saw Carol and her girls, and all the guys from down the plant, standing there stiff like prisoners of war. And off on the side, leaning on his car was Choo Choo, just watching, not saying a word.
On the way home, riding down the snow-covered streets, I began to think it was like Easter a long time ago, Wanda and me and Dog and Carol heading to Hausner’s. Dog would give Carol a box of marzipan candies, which she loved, but which always made me sick even to smell. I remembered biting into them, and I thought that guilt was something like that, some oversweet candy that you could never spit out, and I wanted to stop the car and wash my mouth out with snow.
When we arrived at Ruth’s, I expected them all to get out and go inside, but instead Wanda walked Ruth to the door, and after whispering something to her, she came back down the steps and got inside the car.
“Let’s go home, Red,” was what she said, and so I drove the three of us back to Aliceanna Street.
• • •
The night before Christmas all three of us decorated the tree, and there was a lot of too polite discussion about which balls would look best hanging from which branches and how far away to space the lights. Wanda even found time to bake some peanut butter cookies, something she hadn’t done in maybe three years, and I made a good stiff eggnog, using more whiskey than I ever had in the past, and then immediately worried: would Wanda think I was drunk and that this was just a way of camouflaging the beginning of a gigantic holiday bender? But she didn’t say a word and drank as much as me, and we even let Ace have more than he should have. By the time midnight came, the tree looked better than the big one they had down Harborplace. Everything had come together just right, and we were damned proud of it and just stood there together, touching each other, sipping the eggnog, and commenting on what a fine job we’d pulled off.
In other words, things were as tense as hell. I finally tossed down two quick whiskeys in the kitchen to slow down my heartbeat, which was out of control.
In past years, when we were finished decorating the tree, we’d meet with Doggie and Carol and the kids, and go up the church to sing carols. But that was out of the question now. Just thinking about Dog’s smiling face and his offkey bass sent chills down my back. I was afraid Wanda and Ace would suspect something, but they were real understanding about it.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and take a little nap, and then we’ll open the presents, hon,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, “that sounds like a good idea.”
I forced a wink at Ace and went up to bed, but there was no chance I was going to sleep. My body was as tense as a piece of steel, and every time a car went by, I would go to the window and stare out the smudged glass, expecting Vinnie and Joey and Frankie. And I thought a lot about Choo Choo, too. He’d been real slick, just like he promised, and the “investigation” of the crime was something like a joke. The cops had come around once. I told them I didn’t know anything, that I hadn’t seen Dog for a while, and they jotted down a couple of notes and were gone. I could see it in their faces—a couple of whackos killed each other at a pizza joint, and somebody else got the dough. Vinnie had always been a cheap fuck with his payoffs, and so nobody was going to break their chops to help him get his money back. I guess I should have felt grateful for Choo Choo holding up his end, but I didn’t. I had a daydream that I’d go into his office and stick my gun up his nose and say, “You fucked it up. We walked right into a setup, and now you’re gonna pay.” Jimmy Cagney kind of stuff. And I might have done it too, except I had a wife and kid, and I could see him turning Blazek loose on them.
Besides, when I was in what was left of my “right mind,” I knew it wasn’t Choo Choo’s fault. I had accepted his offer, knowing something could go wrong, knowing that once guns were involved anything could happen. It wasn’t like I was an eighteen-year-old holding up the Little Tavern.
I had taken the risk, and I had talked Dog into it, like I could always talk him into everything, and the crazy bastard had done what he always did, tried to protect me.
And now he was dead. Hell, I had even used his funeral to get back together with Wanda and Ace. And I still had his share of his money, too. But it was going to be a while before I could get it to Carol and the kids.
So I lay there on Christmas Eve, tossing and turning until Wanda came up the steps into the room.
“Red,” she said, “are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, “sure. Look, I’m sorry about the carols. I know how much you and Ace like them, but it just reminds me of Doggie too much.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my temples softly with her long fingers, pressing lightly, and I felt some of the tension disappear. God, I wanted to tell her the truth then, knowing that if it were someone else’s story, she’d have her insights on the poor guy’s problems and maybe even know what to do.
But I didn’t dare tell her anything; instead I had to fake the reason I was grieving, saying things like “He was my friend and I feel responsible for him,” and she held my head in her lap and said, “I know, Red. I know.” And finally I held on to her and ran my hands through her hair, saying her name over and over again.
I don’t think I would have made it through that night without her, but after a while, I was calm enough to sit up and pretend I was okay.
“Hey,” I said, “let’s go down and open the presents.”
“Do you feel like it, Red?” she said.
“Yeah, sure. Then we can sleep later tomorrow.” Which was another lie because I didn’t sleep at all anymore. But I managed a friendly hug and we went downstairs, where Ace was already sniffing around the tree.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, “is it time?”
“Sure kiddo. Let’s go to it.”
With all the dough I had, I at least wanted to buy them some hot presents—you know, maybe Wanda a car coat and something special like a small diamond ring, and Ace a great new guitar—but I had to go real light on all that. The case wasn’t that dead. Not yet.
So I got Ace a new set of sweat togs, the kind he wanted, and a couple of those rock-jazz fusion records I can hardly stand to hear. And Wanda I got a new sweater from the bargain basement down at K-Mart and some fake pearls she could wear while she was hostessing at Weaver’s. They gave me a rod-and-tackle set and a tool box, and, all in all, everybody faked it real well about how delighted they were with this stuff.
We’d had one more glass of eggnog and eaten a couple more of the cookies, and were about to unplug the tree and call it a night, when the doorbell rang.
My heart just about burst through my shirt. Vinnie, I knew it. This was the time to lay on the pressure. Oh yeah …
I wanted to sneak up to the door, peek out, and duck from the gunfire, but I couldn’t do anything of the kind or Wanda and Ace would know. So I walked over cool as could be and opened it up, shutting my eyes as I did.
“Hello, Red.”
It was Carol and the kids, standing out there in the slush. Her blond beehive was covered with snow, and her thick blue eye shadow had run down her cheeks.
“I know we said we couldn’t make it tonight, but, well, the house was so lonely, and I thought …”
“Hey,” I said. “Damn, it’s good to see you, Carol. Come on in, hon. Get out of the cold.”
I let her in with a big fake-hearty “Look who’s here!” and damned if my family didn’t come through like troopers, smiling and hugging the girls, and Wanda getting out the eggnog and cookies, and Ace taking the girls upstairs to his room so he could play them his new records (and probably play along with them on his Fender Tele-caster, bought back in the good old days).
I stayed downstairs with Carol and Wanda and sipped another eggnog, and Carol talked about how pretty the Scotch pine was.
“It’s so full. You know Dog always gets the kind that has a big hole in the back or half the branches are missing right in the middle of the tree.”
I shot Wanda a look and felt my bones chill, and then Carol started to cry.
“Oh, Carol,” Wanda said, coming over to the couch and putting her arm around her. “It’s all right, honey. You just cry if you want to, hon.”
I about lost it myself then but kept smiling and told a story about how Dog and I used to go sledding in Patterson Park, and he’d do all these crazy stunts just to impress Carol, and she cried again and looked up at us and said, “Red, I have to ask you something. I have to …” and I thought: here it comes, she’s going to ask about the robbery and whether or not I was there. I sat as still as I could get, and then she said, “Did Dog tell you I was having an affair with Dick Nellis?”
This question threw me. I didn’t know what to say.
“You’re not answering me, Red.”
“No,” I said, “he never said anything to me about it.”
She looked at me and shook her head.
“You’re lying, Red. To spare my feelings. I’ve known you too long.Oh God, I tried to tell him over and over it wasn’t true. But he kept at me. He said that the only reason I was screwing Dickie was that he had money. Then, a few days before … before he tried that damned fool thing, he told me he was going to have a job soon. He had a new job all lined up, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was, kept saying he was going to have plenty of money.”
She began to cry more then, scraping at her face with her hands, and it was all I could do not to tell her it wasn’t her fault, that it was my idea. I had gotten Dog killed.
But then Wanda would have known, and I would have lost her and Ace for good. Was it right to tell the truth? How could it be true that it was best to lie?
I looked over at the two of them sitting so still on the couch.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s the way things went. He just wanted to feel like a man again. You know it’s not your fault.”
“But I wasn’t sleeping with him,” Carol said. “I almost did once … He took me home and I was feeling so low, but I didn’t. I couldn’t do that to Dog. I loved him too much. But he wouldn’t believe me. God, Red, it’s all my fault. I used to yell at him, complain about everything. Oh God, if I had him back again, I’d never do that. Never … “
She began to sob deeply, and Wanda put her arms around her, and I felt as though I’d suddenly got a nest of chiggers under my skin. I scratched at my hands and arms, felt hot flashes go up my spine.
It was wrong, but I felt I’d do about anything to get her away from us.
I sat there looking at them, then turned my attention to the tree and said softly, “Look at the light there. It’s always the red ones that burn out. Now you tell me why that is.” I touched the bulb and felt it scald my flesh but held on to it anyway, the pain numbing the pain within.
Then the phone rang in the dining room.
“I’ll get it,” I said, like a starving man handed bread.
I tried to walk casually from the room and thought how even my walk had become nothing more than an act. I wondered if that was it … something that happened to you after you committed a black enough sin. You got liar’s walk, liar’s smile, the old you was just a dummy leaking sawdust in some forgotten attic room.
I picked up the phone, but there was no voice at the other end. Only steady, deep breathing.
“Hello,” I said, but I knew right away that no one was going to answer.
There was more breathing, heavy cigarette-smoker breath.
I waited, felt my pulse race, wanting to fake it, pretending it was one of the guys from the plant, but then he’d know that I was scared.
I was about to put it down when Vinnie came on the line. His voice was unnaturally low, his ultimate Godfather imitation. Only tonight it didn’t seem funny.
“I know you got the money, Baker. Dog couldn’t have pulled that job alone. I just wanted to call and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and to tell you that unless I get my dough back by January 15 you’re going to be working down the Good Will in a wheelchair.”
I felt the sweat pour down my face. My own breath was short.
“Hey,” I said, “Merry Christmas, guy. It’s really nice hearing from you. I’m real sorry about that accident you had down the plant. Broke your neck, huh? Well, hang in there, Phil. You’re going to make it. And thanks for calling.”
“Baker, don’t you hang up on me. You come see me this week. You hear me? You come see me, you dickhead. I mean it.”
“I’ll try to stop in, Phil,” I said. “You bet. Real sorry about your neck. Don’t move a whole lot, and it won’t get any worse—you hear me? Guy I knew once told me you make sudden moves, you could get paralyzed. Take it easy. Slow and easy.”
After that Vinnie’s voice went up a few decibels.
“Who else was in this with you, Baker? I bet I know … Gerard … or maybe the Carruchi brothers … Well, they can’t protect you and your family forever, you hear me? We’ll find you open one of these days. Sleep well, pal.”
He hung up the phone, and I felt my mouth turn to cotton.
Would he come after my family? I couldn’t believe it. Until I thought about him down there at the Paradise, of Joey and Frankie and how they got their kicks.
• • •
I went back into the living room, trying to look normal, smiling like a fool.