The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1) (14 page)

“
By who then?”

“
By whoever was pressuring him. You got any ideas?”

The judge was over his chip now. “Why would I have any ideas?”

Frank kibbitzed. “Careful, you give that a little bit too much, you’re gonna be right down here with me.”

“
Thanks for the advice, pal.”

The judge rolled his chip well past the hole and missed coming back. Frank managed to get down in two, and now he was 150 bucks up.

Moving to the next tee, the judge again changed the subject. “By the way, you ever hear from that guy who lost his wife and kids in that car bomb? The one you keep asking to call you?”

Time for more invention. “No, I sure wish I had. Probably skipped town. You pick up any gossip about him or that bomb?”

“
The cops I talk to think he probably did it himself.”

Frank’s response had a bit more heat than he wanted. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

Billy looked at him for a couple of seconds. “Why do evil or fucked up people do any of the things they do? Because they’re evil or fucked up.”

At the next tee, they both pulled their drivers, and Frank said casually, “Well, on a much more pleasant topic, have you heard from a friend of mine named Letty Pell? Lots of red curls, a great body and a very special talent I know you’d enjoy.”

Stopping his set up, he gazed at Billy’s face. As usual it betrayed nothing.

“
No, but it sounds like I’d appreciate her call.”

“
So what’s going on with your mom?”

Hoping to catch a clue, he glanced at his daughter’s hazel eyes, her mother’s eyes, as he twirled with a fork the fettucini with a diced sausage sauce he had almost every time he came here to the Roma, the city’s oldest Italian place.

The quick little frown Jennie tried to hide did not bode well. “Meaning is she still talking about the divorce thing?”

“
Yeah, the divorce thing,” said Frank. “Did she really hire Hartzell?”

Bennett Hartzell was the town’s toughest divorce attorney.

“
I don’t know, but she sounds pretty matter of fact, like it’s gonna happen.”

“
Well, at least she hasn’t called off our trip to the island next week, right?”

“
Right.”

“
She say anything about it?”

“
Only that we can all live together just as easily in the Provo house as we can here. Even with a split pending.”

With a nod he stuffed a wad of rolled up pasta in his mouth.

Jennie said, “Daddy, can I ask you something?”

“
Ask away.”

“
Did you invite me to dinner just to spy on Mom?”

He swallowed and tried not to look offended, a sure sign of guilt. “No way.”

“
Because you didn’t need to. You should know by now I’m totally on your side.”

She was looking at him so earnestly, that scooped neckline showing so much of her lovely top that he felt almost uncomfortable with his own daughter. He wanted to tell this sweet, smart and sexy girl not to worry about her womanly allure, but he needed to find a fatherly way to say it.

“
I know that, baby, and I appreciate it. I called because I feel like I haven’t seen much of you this summer, and I realized, when we had that chat a while back down by the lake, that I really didn’t know much about what you’re thinking and feeling these days. I used to be able to tell just by looking at you, but it seems like overnight you’ve become this mature young woman, with all the wonderful mystery of your sex, and I can’t seem to tell anymore.”

“
Daddy, stop bullshitting.”

“
I’m not bullshitting. Why does everyone think I’m bullshitting?”

“
Because we all know how good you are at it.”

Frank shook his head. “Well, anyway, I just think before we know it, you’ll be heading back to U. of M., and then it’ll be even tougher to know how you are and what you’re up to.”

“
Yeah, well, I’m not sure I’m gonna want you to know what I’m up to.”

Thankfully, she offered this with a small mischievous smile.

“
Jen, you know what I mean. I’m not your mom. I just want to know how you’re doing in class and with your writing, that kind of thing. I mean last year you suddenly started talking about quitting school and spending your time writing a novel in iambic pentameter or some damn thing. I want to know about these things, so I can be a father and give you all the wrong advice.”

“
It was an epic poem in free verse, and I thought your advice was pretty good. That’s why I decided not to do it.”

“
Really? What’d I say?”

“
You said you thought it was an admirable ambition, but why not finish the year and really learn other poetic styles, like iambic pentameter, because otherwise writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. And then this summer if I still wanted to do it, you’d send me to Spain or France or wherever I wanted to go, and I could write it there.”

“
Okay, so what
have
you been writing this summer?”

“
A few poems, but mostly short stories. I’ve just fallen in love with that form. It’s just this fantastic combination of freedom and discipline.”

Now that he was gazing at a new light in those hazel eyes, he felt a lift. “So I hope I can read one soon.”

“
Of course, but how about you, Daddy. How’s the book coming? ‘Buffaloes in the City.’ I love that title.”

“
Well, I haven’t been able to work on it much lately, but this morning I finished a chapter called ‘Smear Monday Romance.’”

“
Smear was a card game, right?”

“
And Smear Monday is the day after Easter. Anyway it’s the story of Marcel Sutterman and Margaret DeValkeneeer and how they got together back in 1924.”

“
So how did Marcel and Margaret get together?”

He was pleased she wanted to know, or at least that she asked. “Well, he’s this big, strapping 20-year-old kid who at 15 had somehow found his way from Brussels to this little town on Superior where he got a job mining iron ore. On Easter Sunday he goes to St. Anthony’s Church and spots this beautiful young girl. He can’t take his eyes off her, but even though she smiles at him in the church, he’s too shy to go up to her after the service.

“
Anyway, the next day, Smear Monday, as was the custom, all the men gather at the Belgian Club in an old saloon to play lots of cards and drink lots of beer. After a while, and probably way too much beer, he’s still day-dreaming about this girl and not paying attention to his cards, and his partner gets so pissed that he starts a fight with him. It quickly turns into a free-for-all, Marcel ends up getting blind-sided by a guy whacking him over the head with a chair. He’s out like a light and they have to take him to the little hospital in town.

“
When he finally wakes up, he thinks he’s dead because this angel in white is standing there, looking just like the gal he’d been staring at in church. So, of course, the nurse is Margaret. She’s 16, one of ten kids, most of them born here to this Flemish couple from a little coastal town in the old country. Marcel’s got a nasty gash in his forehead and a concussion, and she nurses him back to health. He’s so shy that when she has to give him a bath in bed, he keeps his eyes closed the whole time. Within eight months they’re married.

“
They end up having five kids and when the mine slows down and he loses his job, he moves the whole family down here where the plants are hiring. Four of the five kids are college graduates and the fifth takes his father’s job in the plant. Margaret told me their story a few months back and said six years ago, after 62 years of marriage, Marcel died in her arms while they were...you know.”

“
My god, and he was what, in his eighties?”

“
Yep. You know what they say about us Flemish guys.”

“
Yeah, well, wow, what a great story.”

Frank saw her gaze move from him to something over his left shoulder, and now from behind came an uncomfortably familiar voice.

“
So this must be where you take all your mistresses.”

He turned to find Sherie looking radiantly angry in a devastating red dress.

“
Hey, Frank. Fancy meeting you here, the place we first met. Remember, Frank, right over there at the bar where you picked me up? And surely you recall our favorite booth over there to the left, where we’d always sit, back when you still had the time and interest to take me out to dinner. We haven’t been here in so long that I had to come and remind myself why I loved it so much. And what do I find, but my Frankie boy with his latest bimbette.”

She had’t taken her eyes off him but turned now to give her full attention to Jennie.

“
Sweetie, you look a little young even for this self-enchanted prick. So let me tell you where all this is heading, and then you can decide whether you really want to go there. Right now, I’m sure, though self-obsessed, he’s totally charming. He’s attentive, sensitive to your every little need, and, it goes without saying, a dynamite lover. Today you’re enthralled with his stories, but I can tell you they’ll get old. For a while you’ll feel like the most important thing in his universe, and then one day it’ll seem like he’s moved on to another galaxy. And the only time he’ll show his face is in that box sitting on your TV stand. So, honey, do yourself a favor. Turn him off and pull the plug.”

She turned back with a pissed-off smile to see how he was taking this. Quietly he said, “Sherie Sloan meet my daughter Jennifer.”

The smile melted badly as she glanced back at Jennie. Then not quite looking him in the eye, she said softly, “Sorry, Frank.”

As she walked away, he watched her gorgeous ass moving exactly as it did the first time he saw her, heading from the bar to the ladies room that night two years ago.

Turning back to Jennie, he found her with a placid look. “Daddy, can you even imagine being married to the same person for 62 years?”

There had been many times since that stunning moment he had first seen her, a lovely, wrinkled infant just out of Marci’s body, that he had felt hopelessly in love with his daughter.

Never, he thought, had he ever loved her quite as much as he did right now.

“
Hey, Fay, got a sec?”

On her way to Frank’s office, she looked up to find Mary Scott, holding a sheet of paper next to that push-button smile of hers.

“
Hi, Mary. Sure, what’s up?”

Just about everything about this woman drove her nuts, her name, her clothes, her church, everything. And yet they were both single black women in their early 30s, both attractive, neat, efficient. So was this some kind of projected self-hatred? She really didn’t think so.

Mary handed her the sheet of paper. “I just pulled this off the wire. The Supreme Court has upheld parts of a Pennsylvania law imposing some limits on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. President Bush, of course, has issued a statement saying again he opposes abortion in all cases except rape or incest or where the life of the mother is at stake. Clinton, of course, is singing his same old tired song about Roe v. Wade.”

Fay said, “Of course,” but thought, “As usual, bitch, you feel the need to demonstrate your full grasp of the story even with me here in a back hallway.” Depending on her mood, Mary treated her as either a victim or a traitor. A victim to be pitied for working with the Enemy. Or a traitor to her race and gender to be scorned and despised for working with the Enemy.

Mary said, “Well, I just really want to read this story tonight. I think I should read this story tonight. I mean, a woman should read this story.”

“
Why are you saying this to me?”

“
Why? Because this is a woman’s story. With a powerful impact on women’s lives.”

“
No, I mean why aren’t you talking about this with Dennis? He’s the show producer.”

“
Oh, I will. But Dennis doesn’t matter.” A dismissive flip of her hand. “He’ll say yes, and then Frank will raise his little finger, and Dennis will cave. It always happens.”

“
So you want me to say something to Frank.”

“
Would you? Oh, thank you so much, Fay. This means a lot to me.”

“
No problem. I’ll talk to him right now.”

Fay handed back the sheet and walked away, thinking, “Okay, Fatima.”

She was the only one at the station who knew the woman’s real name: Fatima Rolling. Info picked up on a flight to D.C. last year from a seatmate who went to grade school with little Fatima back in Gary. So obviously the woman had chosen the whitest name she could think of. Dressed like the prissiest white girl, always buttoned up, always with those slacks or a pants suit. And she knew why Fatima really wanted to read that story. Because it would please all those good Christian folks at her church, that mostly white World of Faith crowd, where wealth and success are the surest signs of God’s favor.

Fay had never even told Frank about Mary Scott’s real name. Those two already had enough going on without handing him a juicy little item that he could probably not resist using. She knew Frank well, including most of his demons and his frailties. She also liked and admired him. Actually, there was part of her that was almost disappointed he’d never come on to her. Almost.

The most important thing: he had always treated her with professional respect and a kind of paternal affection. Bottom line, he was not just smart, but clever and intuitive about people, dedicated, caring and, probably more than any white guy she had ever known, color blind.

In his office, he was lounging at his desk looking at a magazine from Providenciales, that Caribbean island where he owned a home. She asked, “So when do you leave?”