Settling Old Scores: BWWM Second Chance Romance (6 page)

Sam
did not dress like a pimp. He lived as a matter of fact in an
apartment above the funeral home. He was a giant. He was so tall that
he had to duck to get under most doorways. He was a full six feet
eight. The guy was 300 lbs of solid muscle. Donny kept the girls in
line, no problem. Sam kept the Johns in line, and anyone else
infringing in his business. He supposedly owned the Funeral Home. He
lived above it and would go out in the middle of the night with a
skinny actual undertaker and pick up any bodies the home had calls to
get.

Christ
knows, he was big enough to handle the biggest cadaver you could ever
find on any level of any house, thought Kevin. One night, he had
scared the shit out of Kevin when Kevin knocked on the upstairs
apartment of the funeral home to collect for his route. Sam threw
open the door and lunged underneath the doorway with his enormous
head. In his hand, which was about the size of a small ham, he held a
knife. Kevin was so scared, he practically wet himself. He almost
tumbled down the stairs like he had when meeting Sylvia Greenberg for
the first time. He did get a nice tip from Sam that night though.

From
then on, Kevin always took great pains to make lots of noise before
he came up the stairs to collect from Sam, and to announce himself as
he clumped up the stairs. After the fires, Sam and Donny did not go
out of business. They just concentrated more on prostitution. They
always had two enormous houses side by side on English Avenue that
they had converted into whore houses. They were less than a block
from the funeral home, if you cut through the parking lot. Sam could
get over there to fuck someone up that needed it in under sixty
seconds, Kevin thought.

11.
German North Dakota

As
Kevin thought about it, he couldn't help but imagine a scene with
some guy who thought he was a tough, turning around in the cramped
quarters of the whore house to see Sam McCann, giant son of a bitch
standing there. There wouldn't be any getting away unless you wanted
to jump out a second or third story window. Talk about your worst
nightmare; Sam McCann would have been it.

Mr.
Sharpe snapped Kevin out of his reverie by saying, "I think the
logical culprits in this were the McCanns. They would not have liked
a freelancer right in their own back yard, so to speak. If you really
want to know more, start by going to a library and reading the old
clippings. Then go see Tom Casey; he is a detective downtown. I know
he could point you to the detective that has the case now. They never
closed it you know."

"Thanks
Mr. Sharpe. You know a little bit about everything in this
neighborhood," Kevin said.

"Well,
you knew the three names, and except for Tyrone, you knew what they
did for a living. On a different subject, my wife is going to scold
me if I don't ask you about your romantic life. Any girls in your
life, or are you just out there still sowing your wild oats?" he
asked with a grin.

"It’s
funny you should ask that. Do you remember Pat Washington?"
Kevin said.

"I
remember her quite well. She was one of the best students I ever had.
I grew up in a small town in North Dakota two towns over from where
her mother was from. So, I knew her mother from a long time ago,
too," he said.

Kevin
knew Mr. Sharpe was from North Dakota. He didn't know Hannah
Washington was also from there. "This was the same part of the
world that Lawrence Welk was from. A lot of that country was settled
by German speaking people that were forced out of the Russian Steppes
back in the Czarist days. North Dakota was about as close to the
Steppes as you could get as far as climate was concerned. It was
isolated barren country," said Mr. Sharpe.

"You
had to be tough to survive. There were no forests in this part of the
world. They burned coal to keep themselves alive in the brutal
winters. The cemeteries didn't have wooden crosses in them or granite
headstones; they were made of iron out there," Mr. Sharpe said.

Mr.
Sharpe then shared with him that you could walk through those
cemeteries and see where half the kids in a family had died within
days of each other the same winter from influenza outbreaks and stuff
like that. The people had to be like the crosses they had to bear.
Tough as iron, Kevin thought.

"I
knew Hannah Steiner; that was her maiden name, from back then. Life
was especially tough for young women in that part of the world. They
weren't going to inherit the farm because they couldn't work in it if
they did. Because of the isolation, it was a little inbred out there
too. If you found a man you liked he was probably related to you. The
girls were forced to come to the big city once they got to a certain
age and weren't married. A lot of those girls ended up here working
in factories during the war," he said.

"It
was better here in some ways. There was work, which those girls were
not afraid of. They could do anything mechanical having been farm
girls," he continued on.

"Hannah
ended up at a factory that sewed uniforms for soldiers during the
war. If Pat is anything like her mother, she is a tough minded lady
and she would easily keep the likes of you in line," he said
with a smile.

Kevin
laughed. "She is one very tough cookie; that much I know. I have
never heard her say anything about her dad either. Did you know him
by any chance?"

"I
did not know him. I never met the man. I do know that he worked in
the same factory with Hannah and maintained the machines. He was so
good at it that he did not get drafted during the war. They gave
deferments to people in defense related industries. A factory full of
women working on military uniforms being shut down because a skilled
worker wasn't around to fix the equipment would have been a serious
problem," he said.

Mr.
Sharpe started to say more, but then stopped himself quickly. "My
time is up, the Mrs. expects me home about now," he said.

Kevin
wanted to ask more questions, but they were out of time. He told Mr
Sharpe that he would take a look at the old clippings, and maybe even
talk to the detectives. Then he headed home too.

As
he rode the bus home, Kevin thought about Lawrence Welk. He did
always talk with an accent of sorts. No wonder Mr. Sharpe always
watched Lawrence Welk every Saturday evening! Then he thought about
Hannah Washington. If you grew up in a climate and environment like
she did, how would that affect your children, he wondered. It slowly
dawned on Kevin as he thought about it just what a hard life she and
now her daughter had. When he first met Pat way back then, her
clothes were always hand sewn. Makes sense now that you think about
it. Hannah was probably an expert seamstress. Kevin supposed that
once she got to junior high school, she must have implored her mother
to get her store-bought clothes, like the other kids. He was pretty
sure the store bought stuff came from thrift stores, now that he
thought about it. Kevin used to like to tell people he had to join
the Navy to get his first pair of new shoes; in Pat's case, he
wondered if she ever really had a pair of new shoes.

Her
mother was always strict with Pat. She did not fit in easily with
other girls and boys her own age because of her smarts, or maybe
because she was so tall too. Then there was the stigma of the AFDC
and living in the projects. A lot of parents probably didn't want
their child befriending a girl like Pat. It's no wonder that she
retreated into her music, her studies, and her room, as she grew up.
It was no wonder she had a chip on her shoulder too. She really had
been cheated out of a normal childhood, though she would never
acknowledge it out of loyalty to her mother.

Going
to the university must have been a good experience for Pat, Kevin
thought. She was at least around a crowd she could talk to. She had
no boyfriends in high school to speak of, just other semi-outsiders
like Kevin. They sort of had an implicit agreement not to write to
each other about their relations with the opposite sex during their
pen pal years. The real truth is that neither one probably had the
stomach to listen to the other talk about sex and relationships with
someone else. It just would have been bad French to do so.

One
of the things Kevin decided he would do was read the clippings, and
maybe even talk to the detectives. He still wanted to know how they
handled the monumental task of looking into crimes committed during
the riots.

12.
Matt Tunnel Rat

Another
week went by, and Pat showed up again. This time, it was early one
evening about 6:00 pm. She looked a little nervous and a little worn
out. "Hi Pat," Kevin said, wondering if she was checking up
on him again.

"Hi
Kevin," she said. "I just finished my last practice
session, and I thought I'd drop in on you before I go home."

"Come
on in. Have you eaten anything since lunch?" Kevin asked.

"No,
to tell the truth, I'm famished," she said.

"Let's
go get something to eat, my treat," said Kevin. So they went
down the elevator, and across the street to get something to eat.

"They
have great burgers here if you are interested," Kevin said.

"Yum,
a big juicy burger with all the fixings sounds great to me,”
she said.

They
ordered, and she even talked herself into a beer while they were
waiting.

"By
the way, do you remember Sylvia Greenberg? She lived on the Avenue
right above the little grocery store between Jerome and Kansas. Maybe
you don't know the name, but she was the pretty blond teenager with
the about four-year-old daughter that you used to see swinging down
the street. She always stood out like a sore thumb because of her
looks, and blondness. Here is a picture of us in front of the grocery
store," Kevin said as he picked the picture he recently had
looked at out of his pocket and handed it to her.

"I
do remember her, now that I see the picture. Oh my god, is that you?
I always wondered about her. She had no business with that little
girl down there. What brings her to mind?" Pat asked.

"You
asked me the other day if I saw any old faces at the school,"
Kevin said. "It turns out that I saw an old face, but it
actually belonged to Marcy Greenberg, the little girl. She joined Mr.
Sharpe's math club, and she looks exactly like her mother did those
days."

Then
Kevin told Pat about Sylvia, though she already knew the story, and
the circumstances under which he last saw her. Pat was amused about
the big-time crush Kevin had on Sylvia. She was delighted about him
falling down the stairs ass over tea kettle.

“
Not
surprising that Willie wanted a blond white girl. He always had a
thing for them. Falling down the stairs serves you right for ogling
that poor girl. Too bad you didn't learn. You continued to ogle the
ladies. It's hard to believe that little girl is in ninth grade now,”
she said.

"Well,
ogling is really not too surprising to me. You’ve never been a
horny ninth grade boy. I've seen my share of black chicks that I
thought were gorgeous. Cute little blonds aren't off my radar, or
tall, blue eyed brunettes for that matter," Kevin said as he
looked at her for a reaction.

"Yeah,
and you weren’t against trying to flirt with any of them
either, as I recall. That's what I always liked about you, equal
opportunity all the way. In this picture, you were just a skinny boy,
but I sure liked you even then. You were a cute boy with nice curly
hair. Marcy looks almost as cocky as you do. You know Sylvia was a
freelance prostitute, right?" Pat asked.

"No,
I didn't know that until Mr. Sharpe told me that part of it just a
week ago. You are telling me the same thing now. I guess I was the
last one to know what was common knowledge back then. Do you know the
rest of the story?" Kevin asked.

Then
Kevin proceeded to tell Pat about Sylvia’s disappearance and
suspected foul play.

"You
know, there are six or seven libraries on campus. You could easily go
back to the old clippings from that time and see if there was
anything in them about her disappearance. I also have to say that I
am the slow one. It just dawned on me how blind you are to simple
observation when you befriend someone," Pat said.

The
burgers arrived, and they both ate like they were famished. Kevin
wondered what she meant by that last remark. There wasn't anything
that got past her.

"Speaking
of old faces, do you remember Matt T?" she asked.

"Matt,
the tunnel rat? I remember him," Kevin said.

Matt
had been a wiry little gymnast from the neighborhood, about five
years ahead of Pat and Kevin in age. Kevin would bet there weren’t
six kids Matt’s age in the entire country that could do what he
could do on a high bar back in his school days. He had more heart
than sense. After high school Matt, got drafted into the Army. They
capitalized on his size and heart all right. They made him a tunnel
rat in Vietnam. He was fearless. Of course, when he came back, he was
never the same.