The Temptations of St. Frank (12 page)

Frank kept pulling the rope, over and over again, random thoughts bouncing around in his skull like ricocheting bullets. Mr. Trombetta. Mrs. Trombetta's offer to use the bathroom. His father's obvious disapproval of him doing that. Annette's cute-as-hell ass. Mrs. Trombetta's Rockette legs. Yolanda's legs.

He pulled again, harder than ever, not caring if he broke it, and finally the engine fired up, belching white smoke that blew into his face and made him cough and blink. He spit the exhaust taste out of his mouth and thought of Yolanda's grandfather and the smoke coming from the underground fire at the landfill. He adjusted the choke and started to push the mower, picking up where he'd left off. His father's truck was in the street, heading for the stop sign at the corner, directionals flashing for a right turn. Frank looked up at the front of the Trombettas' two-story house as he pushed the mower. Lots of windows, lots of rooms.

Just go on in, she'd said. You don't have to ask.

Really…

Frank had an idea.

The bathroom had a sweet cherry smell. It was the powder room off the foyer near the front door. The toilet seat had a fuzzy black cover that matched the throw rug. He'd walked through the kitchen to get there, and even though Mrs. Trombetta had said he could let himself in, he felt like an intruder, a burglar, a dope, dead meat. But he had to do this, he kept telling himself. He had to at least try.

His piss stream dwindled down to a trickle, and he shook off the last drops. He could hear the monotonous buzz of Raul's mower on the other side of the harlequin-pattern stained glass window. Raul had seen him coming in, but Frank didn't worry about that. The Trombettas never spoke to Raul, and Raul always played dumb around the customers.

Frank reached for the toilet handle but then stopped himself. He didn't want to make any more noise than he had to. The son might be around, and he might be a crazy asshole. Frank imagined that he was still sleeping off whatever he had done the night before—gotten drunk, high, laid, whatever. A mob boss's son probably got whatever the hell he wanted.

Frank studied the water in the bowl. It was pretty yellow. Evidence of his presence. He couldn't leave that there, so he waited for the sound of Raul's motor to get louder as he approached the front of the house. Frank's hand was poised on the toilet handle. When the engine roar was as loud as he thought it would get, he quickly flushed. It didn't make a whole lot of noise going down, but he hadn't thought about the sound of the tank filling. It was constant, and it was taking too damn long. Frank held his breath, watching the water level rise. It was slow as shit, and Raul was pushing his mower the other way, the cover noise getting fainter. The goddamn tank was taking forever to fill. Someone was going to hear it. They would know he was in there. He was gonna get caught. Fuck! But just as he imagined himself full of bloody bullet holes in the trunk of a black Cadillac, it finally stopped, the surface of the water shimmering, like a cool mountain stream. Frank stood very still and listened. All he could hear was Raul's mower in the distance, but the quiet didn't put him at ease. It was a
Psycho
silence. Nobody ever heard Tony Perkins in his mother's dress before he struck with the butcher knife, did they?

Frank went to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He didn't have to do this, he told himself. Mrs. Trombetta had said he could use the bathroom, and that's all he was doing. He could just walk out the way he'd come in and nobody could accuse him of doing anything wrong. But if he started wandering around the house, well, that was another story. And if he got caught? He didn't even want to think about that. Mr. Trombetta probably wouldn't have him killed, but Frank could end up getting a serious ass-kicking. But if they caught him with some kind of evidence of the mob's ownership of the landfill, maybe then they would have him whacked. The punishment would fit the crime.

Frank's mouth was dry. He thought about washing his hands, but they were very dirty from working outdoors and he would mess up the sink. More evidence of his presence. He stared at the shiny gold door handle. He could chicken out and forget the whole thing. Or he could be a man about it. Seize the opportunity to blow the lid off this thing. Get Trombetta and the archbishop and whoever else was responsible arrested. Get the government involved so they'd take over the landfill and finally put out the fire. Stop the toxic smoke. Save some lives in Yolanda's neighborhood. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He could become a hero to the Ukrainians down there. Become Yolanda's hero. She'd like him if he pulled this off. She'd have sex with him. Just like in the movies.

Yeah, right, he thought. Things never happen that way.

He made up his mind to go back outside and finish mowing, forget about the whole thing. But then he thought about Monsignor Fitzgerald and what an absolute fucking prick he was and how much he would just love to fuck the man up royally, exposing him as the go-between for the church and the mob. Frank changed his mind. Maybe he'd look around, just a little bit. Maybe he'd get lucky and find something.

Frank opened the door and stepped out into the foyer. Being out in the open gave him cold feet all over again.

What the fuck am I looking for? he thought. Legal papers? Contracts? A deed? What exactly did he need to make this happen? He wasn't even sure he knew what a deed was, and he might not even recognize it if he found one. And where the fuck would he find a deed? Where would Mr. Trombetta keep important papers like that? He probably had an office in the house. He'd keep important stuff in his desk or in a file cabinet or a safe. Frank's parents had a strong box that they kept at the back of the closet in their bedroom on the floor behind a pile of shoes. Frank did not under any circumstances want to go into the Trombettas' bedroom. Getting caught snooping around the house would be bad enough. Getting caught in their bedroom would be beyond bad.

He stepped softly over the marble floor, the soles of his worn workboots making no sound at all. He peeked into the living room. Everything was white—the couch, the armchairs, the shag rug, the lamps, the walls, everything. His mother would have a bird if she saw that room.
Who could have a completely white room?
she'd say.
It would just get dirty. We could never have a room like that,
she would say.
It would be filthy in no time.
Stains drove his mother crazy. She washed everything with bleach. Lots of it. Frank's house reeked of bleach.

He leaned over the threshold to see more of the room but didn't dare step inside with his dirty boots. When they were new, his boots had been the color of spicy brown mustard, but now they were green at the toes from all the grass he'd walked through. On the wall opposite the white couch was a large family portrait, a photograph that had been altered to look like an oil painting. Mr. and Mrs. Trombetta sitting, Annette and the son—whatever his name was—standing. The parents' faces had to have been touched up. Mrs. Trombetta looked way too young, and Mr. Trombetta was smiling, something Frank had never seen. Frank thought he was incapable of smiling, that he'd been born without the face muscles necessary to make a smile. Annette was pretty cute in the portrait, her hair piled up on top of her head, showing her big chest just like her mother. The son was dark, like his father, but skinny. Judging from his face, Frank suspected that he had a unibrow in real life but the artist had separated it. Frank had just assumed that he was a tough guy like his old man, but he didn't look so tough here. He could be a 4H geek with those looks, Frank thought. Finally seeing what the son looked like, Frank felt a little braver.

Smaller family photos in white frames were arranged on the end tables on either side of the couch, and that gave Frank an idea. Maybe somewhere in the house there was a photo of Trombetta with the archbishop. Maybe the two of them with shovels breaking ground at the landfill back when it first opened. Or a ribbon-cutting ceremony. If landfills had grand openings, that is. Frank wasn't so sure they did.

Frank walked through the foyer toward the rear of the house. He figured all he needed was something that proved a connection between Mr. Trombetta and the church. That combined with the photos Molloy had taken at the baseball game and the electronic-ear tapes might be enough to convince a reporter to investigate the story, break it wide open and expose their asses on the front page. Frank could be an unnamed source. But privately he'd make sure Yolanda knew it was him who got the whole thing started. And Tina, too.

Frank slipped through the kitchen to the den, a dark wood-paneled room with an extra-long brown leather couch and a big console TV set. He imagined Trombetta and his son watching football games here. Trombetta wouldn't keep anything important here, Frank decided, so he moved on.

On his way back to the kitchen, he peered through an open doorway into a sun porch. The room had large, glass-slat windows that cranked open like Venetian blinds and white wicker furniture. He moved away from the doorway, not wanting anyone outside to see him there.

He walked back through the kitchen and stepped into the dining room. Sunlight bounced off the polished surface of a large, carved wood table surrounded by twelve matching chairs with red velvet seats and backs. The table's thick legs were carved spirals. The DeMedicis could've owned that table and plotted murders there. Maybe Trombetta did, too. Frank left the room. His parents didn't have a dining room, but he figured nobody kept anything important where they ate. Whenever he played Clue with his friends when he was a kid, he never found anything in the dining room. Not the lead pipe or the gun or the rope, nothing.

He went back into the hallway and wondered where he should go next, the basement or the second floor. He imagined that Mr. Trombetta might have an office in the basement. And probably a rec room. Upstairs there would only be bedrooms. Frank opened the door under the staircase, careful not to make a sound, and stared down the dark stairwell. He reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Florescent lights blinked downstairs. He started down the steps, shutting the door behind him. His stomach was tense. If he had gotten caught wandering around on the first floor, he could always say he was just looking for the bathroom, but in the basement he'd have no excuse.

He took the steps slowly, afraid that someone might be down there, maybe an attack dog, but when he reached the bottom and took a look around the rec room, envy shoved his fear aside. It was a grander version of Dom's rec room. The bar was full-sized and fully stocked, dozens of liquor bottles lined up in front of a big mirror. Ten bar stools upholstered in black Naugahyde stood along the edge of the bar like chess pawns. A Wurlizer juke box, the old kind with red and yellow bubble lights running up the front, and an honest-to-God pinball machine sat together against the wall. A green-felt pool table, balls arranged neatly in a wooden triangle, sat off to the side. It had an old-fashioned look, the kind of table where robber barons smoked cigars, drank brandy, and played fancy billiard games, not plain old 8-ball. Frank wouldn't have been totally surprised if the Trombettas had a bowling alley somewhere down here.

But that wasn't what made him envious. It was the other end of the space that really made him jealous. It was practically a professional music studio. A silver-flake Gretsch drum kit was flanked by three huge amps—a Fender Super Reverb and a Vox Royal Guardsman, which was bigger than his Viscount, on one side and an Ampeg B-15 on the other. A wine-red Gibson SG and a white Fender Precision Bass sat up straight in stands in front of the amps.

Jesus Christ! Frank thought. The Beatles could fucking play here. Did Trombetta's son play well enough to deserve this kind of set-up? He must have a band. With boss equipment like this he had to have a band, the kind of band Frank and Dom dreamed of, a band that had stuff like this. Frank went over to the bass and plucked the low E string. Unplugged it didn't make much of a sound, of course, but he and Dom needed a bass player. And a drummer. Dom knew Trombetta's son, but that would never work out. How could Frank play in a band with a guy whose father he was trying to screw? Too bad, though. The kid had some really nice stuff. And a place to rehearse.

Frank laid his finger on the string to stop the vibration. He had to stop fooling around. Mrs. Trombetta and Annette might come back in. And the son might be around. And worst of all, Mr. Trombetta might come home. Frank had to get moving.

He found a doorway next to the bar. Maybe Trombetta's office was back there, he thought. He opened the door to check it out, but all he found was the dirty basement where the furnace and the water heater were. He spotted another door on the far wall near a workbench. He walked over and opened it an inch. As he suspected, that door led to the three-car garage. The only car in there was covered with a tarp. Frank tiptoed over to it and lifted the cover. It was a vintage red Corvette convertible. He dropped the tarp and went to the garage doors, standing on his toes to peek through one of the small windows. His father's truck wasn't back, but Raul was nearly finished with his section of the lawn.

Frank retraced his footsteps back through the basement and up the stairs to the foyer. He looked up at the ceiling and frowned. He didn't like the idea of going upstairs. In his mind going into people's bedrooms was more of a violation than what he'd already done. But he'd come this far, and he knew he'd probably never get a chance like this again. If he had any hope of getting the goods on Trombetta, he had to keep going.

His heart thumped as he went to the staircase and laid his hand on the banister. He could see that the wallpaper on the second floor was gold-and-white vertical stripes. He listened to the silence. Only the faint sound of Raul's mower filtered into the house. He'd just take a quick look around, he told himself. Avoid the bedrooms. Just look for the office. He wiped the soles of his boots on the legs of his pants and headed upstairs. No bedrooms, he repeated in his head.

He moved fast on the staircase but didn't run, not wanting to make any noise whatsoever. The carpeting was gold-colored to match the gold in the wallpaper. He quickly stepped down the hall so that he couldn't be seen from the first floor. A closed door was on his right, a room that faced the backyard. Bedroom, he thought. He imagined the unibrow son fast asleep in there, like the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Frank moved on.

The next bedroom door was open. He could smell that it was a girl's room before he even got there. Annette's room, no doubt. The sweet smell of whatever girls used on themselves filled his nostrils. The bed was unmade, the sheets a wild psychedelic pattern in orange, yellow, pink, and purple. A pair of cut-off jeans were on the floor. And a pair of white panties. And a pink bra. There were two posters on the wall. Paul McCartney looking into the camera with those I-really-wanna-make-love-to-you-and-only-you eyes. And the Beach Boys on the sand in swimming trunks, some of them holding surf boards. The three Wilson brothers had long bangs like Brian O'Keefe at school. Frank guessed that Annette's favorite Beach Boy was probably Dennis Wilson, the drummer, who was bare-chested in the photo, showing off his physique.