Freaky Deaky

Chapter 18

Skip had thought that today he'd pretend he was a wealthy suburbanite: drop his ration of acid, sit back with a few cold beers, his feet up, and watch movies on cable TV, cars bursting in flames, stunt men being shot off of high places--see if he could recognize the work, or how it was done if it was a new gag--and then Robin said they were leaving because the phone had rung.

He'd told her, "You don't think it was for you, do you? It's some old lady calling your mother."

She'd looked at that phone like it was wired to blow and told him to stop and think. What if someone called while she was on the phone talking to Woody? They'd get a busy signal, right? And that would mean someone's in the house, right? But her mother's friends would know she was on a cruise. So you know what they'd do? Skip asked Robin to tell him. They'd call the cops--that's what they'd do!

She wasn't thinking.

Skip said, If your mother's friends know she's on a cruise, why would they call?

Now Skip wasn't thinking.

Never use logic on an emotional woman. Or one in any state, for that matter. Robin gave him her killer look instead of an answer. So Skip tried another approach, trying to sound sincere. Robin? Even if the cops did come, what would they do? Ring the doorbell, look in some windows? They didn't have a key, did they?

Yes!

That was where she had him, got him out of the chair in front of the TV and into the car. She was probably lying; she still had him because he couldn't prove otherwise. But what pissed her off most was something he couldn't help but mention.

"If it could get us in trouble, why did you want to call from your mom's in the first place?"

She said, "Because you had to get laid. That's the only reason I stayed at Mother's house, for you."

It hadn't even been that good. Not anywhere near as good as it used to be. As for her laying the blame on him, that was typical of a man-eater like Robin, who had never in her life admitted being wrong and would think quick to incriminate whatever poor asshole was nearest. In this instance Skip sitting next to her in the Lincoln, Robin driving, Robin hauling ass eighty miles an hour down the Chrysler freeway to get home in time to call Woody before eleven. Most other cars were doing about seventy. They drove as fast here as they did in L.A., except out in L.A. there were more places to drive fast to.

She was jumping lanes also, cutting in and out of traffic and getting horns blown at her.

If those other people were stunt drivers and he was being paid thirty-five hundred for this ride it might be different. It inspired Skip to ask, "How about if you call from a pay phone? We wouldn't have to rush so."

Robin didn't answer; she kept driving.

"Look over there, the Sign of the Big Boy. We could relax, have us a cup of coffee first."

Robin said, "You really think I'm going to stand at a pay phone in a Big Boy, with people coming in and out past me, and tell Woody, Now here's the deal? Somebody standing next to me, waiting to use the phone? 'Uh, we'd like a million dollars, Woody.' He goes, 'What'd you say?' He can't hear me 'cause I have to keep my voice down."

She seemed calmer doing that little skit and it made some sense. But she was thinking too much. Probably going over in her mind what she'd say to the guy. Skip thought of telling her if she didn't call him at eleven, call him later on, after the bomb went off. What was the difference?

But that made too much sense and could get her pissed off again. Or she'd say she didn't want to talk about it any more, so drop it. That was how some women miscalculated the guy's frustration level and got hit. The woman would still win. She'd keep showing him her black eye to make him feel like an asshole. It was best not to get worked up in the first place. What Skip did, flying down the Chrysler freeway, he went through his mind looking for harmless but interesting topics of conversation. . . . And thought of a good one.

"Remember that big Stroh's beer sign you used to see down a ways?"

He told her how a demolition company tore down the brewery, a sight he'd have come to watch if he'd known about it beforehand. He told her you didn't explode a building when you took it down, you imploded it. He told her for the Stroh's job he read they'd set eight hundred and eighty separate charges and blew them at seven-and-a-half-second intervals, starting from the center of the structure and working out, blowing those support columns one at a time so that the building collapsed in on itself. He told Robin he was here in '84, right after he got out of Milan, when they tore down the old Hoffman building, Woodward at Sibley. They blew the charge and the building just stood there till four hours later it fell the wrong way, right on top of the bar next door. He told Robin that when you have space around you it's a different ball game. He began to tell her how you demolish a silo, how you notch one side and shoot light charges on the other---

And Robin said, "Jesus Christ, will you shut up?"

That did irritate Skip, but did not set him off. He had a return ticket to L.A. He had a hundred and forty-seven dollars from the drugstore, and he had four hundred and something rubbers he could blow up like balloons to celebrate getting the fuck out of this deal if she got any snottier.

Neither of them said another word till they pulled up in front of her rundown apartment building on Canfield and Robin turned her head toward him, hand on the door latch.

"You go right back to the house and stay in the basement. And I mean stay there. Don't even go near a window."

"What if the phone rings?"

"Don't answer it."

"What if it's you?" Skip said.

Got her.

Ten thirty Donnell brought Mr. Woody his eye-opener, vodka and pale dry ginger ale, half and half, two of them on a silver tray. He placed one of the drinks on the night table next to the flashlightthe man kept there in case of a power failure. The man, being scared to death of the dark, had flashlights all over the house.

The way Donnell usually worked it, he'd touch the man then and say, "Rise and shine, Mr. Woody, the day is waiting on you," except if the man had wet the bed. Then Donnell would hold his breath and not say anything, just shake him, trying not to breathe in the smell coming off the man. Donnell would have to wait for the swollen face to show life mixed with pain, then for the man to get up on his elbow and take the drink. Donnell would then step out of the way. Soon as the man finished the drink he'd be sick right there if he didn't get to the bathroom in time. Starting this wake-up service, Donnell had brought the man Bloody Marys, till he found out being sick was part of waking up. Did it one week and said, Enough of this Bloody Mary shit, cleaning up a bathroom looked like somebody'd been killing chickens in it.

Today Mr. Woody got in there okay to gag, make all kinds of sick noises while Donnell slipped on his earphones and listened to Whodini doing the rap, doing "The Good Part," rappin' "When we gonna get to the good part?" Rap. Yeah. Donnell watching the man didn't slip and hit his head. "Mr. Woody?" Donnell said. "Get down to it, on your knees, you be safer." Man would be closer to the toilet too, wouldn't get his mess all over.

Mr. Woody came out catching his breath like he'd been crying, red face redder, and Donnell handed him his second drink, the one that would settle him, let his system know the alcohol was coming and everything would be fine.

There, the man said "Boy-oh-boy," showing signs he wasn't going to die just yet. Ordinarily about now Donnell would ask him what was on for today, play that game with him, like there was all this different shit the man could be doing. But not this morning.

This morning he said, "Soon as you have your breakfast we have to tend to some business." He watched the man stumble against the bed trying to put his pants on. "Mr. Woody, what you do, you put your underwear on first. Then you sit down on the floor to put your trousers on, so you don't kill yourself." Asshole. The man could barely dress himself, could never pick out clothes that matched.

"Mr. Woody, the funeral people called up. They getting your brother this afternoon, from the morgue. They gonna cremate him, but then what do they put the remains in? See, they have different-price urns they use. Then is he going out to a cemetery? You understand? The funeral people want to know what to do with him."

"Tell 'em--I don't know," Woody said from the floor. "Did you get the paper in?"

"Not yet."

"I want to know what my horoscope says."

"I'll get it for you," Donnell said. "Read it with your breakfast. We have to talk about getting the mess cleaned up in back, have it hauled away. You want me to take care of it?"

"Call somebody."

"I know some people do that kind of work."

"That's fine."

Donnell watched him reach under the bed for his shoes.

"We have to talk about getting you a new limousine. What kind you want, what you want in it, all that."

"I want a white one."

"That's cool. But what we have to do first, Mr. Woody, is see how you want to change your will, now your brother's gone. I thought me and you could rough it out. You understand? Put it all down on a piece of paper and you sign it, you know, just in case you don't talk to your lawyer for a while."

"I think I either want a white one or a black one."

Donnell bit on the inside of his mouth till he felt pain and said, "Mr. Woody, you want to look up here a minute? Never mind your shoes, I'll tie your shoes for you. Please look up here."

Multi-wealthy millionaire motherfucker sitting on the floor like a fat kid, not knowing shit.

"I believe you forget something you told me yourself last night," Donnell said. "This woman name of Robin Abbott? You remember her, was here Saturday?"

The man, looking up at him dumb-eyed, said, "Robin . . . ?"

"Use to show you her goodies."

"Yeah, Robin."

"You tell me she went to stir for doing bombs? Now your own brother got kill by one yesterday was put in your limo? Not his, yours?"

"Mark doesn't have a limo."

"Listen to me. You understand it could happen again? Bam, you get taken out, you not even looking, don't even hear it. That's why I'm saying you have to get a new will, man, Mr. Woody, in case anything might happen you don't even know about."

Look at the man looking fish-eyed. What's he see?

"That's what we gonna do next," Donnell said, "while you having your breakfast. Write down things for your will." Shit. Quick.

Woody said, "Will you get the paper?"

Donnell went downstairs. He'd look at the horoscope box in the paper and pick out a good one, read it to the man while he at his Sugar Pops. This is a special day for romance. Love is looking up. The man liked that kind. Or, what Donnell was thinking of doing as he crossed the front hall, make one up. Time to get your financial ass in order. . . . Don't put off making your will. . . . Put in it whoever has been most loyal to you. Whoever cleans up your messes.

He opened the front door hoping to see the Free Press lying close by. It wasn't on the stoop, it wasn't out on the grass. . . . He'd told the fat-kid delivery boy, Man, if you don't have the arm then walk it up here on your young legs. But the fat kid's daddy waiting out in the car, most likely hating rich people, had told the kid throw it, that's how you deliver papers, throw the motherfucker. The fat kid would obey his daddy and the paper would end up half the time in the bushes.

The ones to the left of the door. Donnell went to the stone lion on that side and leaned over its back. There was the paper folded tight with a rubber band resting in the shrubs. There was the paper and there was something else looked like a bag underneath it. Donnell stepped around the lion and down off the slate front stoop. It looked like a new bag, not one had been out in the weather. The kind of black canvas bag a workman might have left? Or one of the police yesterday looking around. Donnell saw the bag in that moment as a find, something that could be worth something. He picked up the paper and the bag and went inside, closed the front door and locked it. Put the bag on the hall table with the paper, zipped the bag open, looked inside at the clock, the battery, the five sticks of dynamite and the wires going from here to there and said, "Shit. I'm dead."

It took a minute for Donnell standing there frozen to tell himself he wasn't dead yet. That the bomb must've been put there during the night and had sat there all this time. It took him that little while to adjust to the situation and tell himself, Be cool. Are you cool? He wasn't running off screaming, that was cool. He was looking right at the bag. He thought, Open the door, throw it outside. But couldn't turn his back to it. It was like if he kept looking at the motherfucker it wouldn't do nothing to him. Except there was a clock in there ticking toward a certain time or there wouldn't be no need for the clock. If he looked at the clock it might tell him what time the bomb was going off. Only the clock wasn't face up. To reach in, touch it, mess with the wires, that wouldn't be cool. Look at a clock the last thing he ever did on earth?

What did that leave for him to do?

Donnell wiggled his toes in his hundred-dollar jogging shoes.

He said, "You got to put it somewhere, man." Thought of outside, thought of down in the basement. He said, "You got to put it somewhere you don't stop and fool with doors." Thought another minute and picked up that bag again, the hardest thing he ever did in his life.

Donnell walked off with the bag down the hall, hurrying without running, the way those guys in a heel-and-toe walking race move their hips cute back and forth, holding the bag out to the side like it had a mess in it, went through the sunroom and out to the chlorine-smelling swimming pool, took some sidesteps turning, flung that bag away from him out over the water, ran back into the sunroom, hit the floor and covered his head.

There was no sound. Dead silence.

Then a ringing sound and Donnell felt his body jump. The sound came again and came again, Donnell hearing it through his shoulders tight against his ears. It came again and he took his arms away, gradually raised his head. It came again and he got to his knees and reached for the phone.

"Mr. Ricks's residence. . . ."

Robin sat at her desk in a swivel chair, close to the red explosion on the wall. She recognized Donnell's voice and said into the phone, "Let me speak to him, please."

Donnell's voice said, "Mr. Ricks can't be disturbed. You want to tell me who's calling?"

"Tell him it's quite important."

Robin was giving him her low, slow voice.

"You can leave a message," Donnell's voice said, "or you can call back later."

"I want to tell him I'm sorry about his brother."

"You can leave your name, your phone number."

Robin stroked her braid.

"I want to tell him it was an accident."

There was a silence on the line.

"What was?"

"His brother getting blown up. I want to tell him that. Why don't you ask him if he can be disturbed or not?"

"Don't have to ask him, he's the one told me."

Robin moved and the swivel chair squeaked.

"I want to tell him I hope the same thing doesn't happen to him."

There was a longer silence on the line.

"I can tell him that," Donnell's voice said.

"But I want to be sure he understands it. If you tell him, you're taking on quite a responsibility, don't you think?"

There was a pause and then Donnell's voice said, "How much you looking to get?"

Now Robin paused. The chair squeaked again.

"I'd like about a million. Yeah, let's make it an even million. Can you remember to tell him that?"

"I believe so," Donnell's voice said. "Would that be cash or you take a check?"

Robin hunched over the desk as she said, "You want to play, is that what you're doing? I'll play with you. In about two minutes, man, you'll hear the way I play. It's going to ring in your fucking ears so you won't forget."

There was a silence.

Then heard, "Hold it a minute."

Robin straightened in the chair. "Hey, what're you doing?" Silence. She looked at her watch. Twenty-five seconds passed.

Donnell's voice came on the line again. "All right. Tell me how you want this million dollars given to you."

"Oh, are you back? You ready to talk?"

His voice said, "Behave, girl. I can hang up, end this business right now."

Robin got her low, quiet voice back. "I'll let you know. How's that?"

"When's this gonna be you talking about?"

"As soon as he has it."

"If the man doesn't want to give it to you, what?"

"Bow your head and think of Mark."

"Say you gonna kill him, blow him up?"

Before Robin could answer Donnell's voice said:

"All right, it's cool. I'll tell the man."

The line went dead.

Robin eased back in the chair and didn't move. She wanted to believe she'd handled it okay--at least considering the way Donnell was all of a sudden into it, playing it back, and it threw her timing off. The idea had been to keep him on till she heard the explosion, tell him to have a nice day and hang up.

She might have to give Skip a different version. Otherwise he'd say she blew it, misjudged the guy. Try to explain that. Well, you see him in his chauffeur suit opening doors, Jesus Christ, you assume he's now a well-behaved brand-new house-nigger version of the old Donnell, right? And Skip would say, Hey, Robin? You decide this dude is born again and you haven't talked to him in like sixteen years?

Robin began to picture Donnell waiting by the limo, Donnell in his dark shades, the trim black suit. . . . She lit a cigarette, got more comfortable in the creaky chair and began to think, Yeah, but wait. What's wrong with the way it is? Dealing with the old Donnell. Jesus, and began to get excited about the idea. Seeing him as a Panther hiding in the chauffeur suit. Waiting for his chance to score, work some kind of game. The guy would have to be up to something.

She wondered why she hadn't realized it before. It seemed so obvious now. How could he resist? She thought about it another few moments and said, "Jesus, far out." Because if they were both looking to score and Donnell was inside, alone, and hadn't figured out a move yet . . .

Robin had an urge to call him back. "Hi, it's me. I was just wondering, you want to get in on it?"

But then looked at her watch. Shit, it was bomb time. Any moment now, kaboom, and the lion goes flying, disappears, the door blows in, windows shatter. . . .

And who sees it? Back when blowing up the establishment was popular, they'd set the charge on a timer, come back to park about a block away, smoke joints and at least hear it go off. She realized she was not working much of a fun factor into this deal. Thinking too much about money. Bad. Becoming way too serious. What she needed was a release, an upper that wasn't dope. A guy who could lighten her mood. Not Skip, he was basically a downer. Someone more spontaneous--as her mind flashed that scene in the powder room--like Donnell. Perfect. Assuming that in the last thirty seconds or so he hadn't opened the front door. It would be just her luck to lose him before they even got started. She began to wonder what Skip would think. She liked Skip, but he always had b.o. Which used to be okay, but not now. Having b.o. was no longer in. She kind of liked the idea of approaching Donnell first. That seemed like the way to go. . . .

The phone rang.

Robin waited for two more rings before answering. It was the building manager. He said, "Well, you're finally home. There's a couple police officers here want to talk to you."

"What about?"

The manager didn't answer. Robin heard him talking to someone away from the phone. She waited. And now a woman's voice came on.

"Miss Abbott, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Sergeant Downey, with the Detroit Police? I wonder if we could come up and talk to you for a minute."

"It doesn't sound like a lot of fun," Robin said. "What's it about?"

"You may or may not have been a witness to a crime we're investigating. It'll only take about two minutes."

"It's not something I did?" Robin said.

The lady cop sort of laughed. "No, we're sure of that."

"How many are you? I only have three chairs."

"We won't even have to sit down," the lady cop's voice said. "Just myself and Sergeant Mankowski."

Donnell made himself stand at the side of the pool. The bag was floating still, as it was before, when he'd come off the phone to take a look. The stuff from inside the bag was at the bottom of the deep end by the diving board, in nine feet of water. Dark objects down there. The wires still seemed attached to the objects.

Donnell walked through the house to its other end and into the kitchen, where the man was watching "Leave It to Beaver" on the TV while he had his breakfast. It looked like Post Alpha-Bits this morning. The man liked a sweet cereal to start the day, then get all the sugar he needed in his booze. The horoscope page of the paper was folded open next to his bowl. The man glanced up, anxious.

"Listen to this. It says, 'You have a sense of inner and outer harmony. This would be a perfect day to start taking singing lessons; you may have talent.' What do you think?"

"Yeah, well, if we have time," Donnell said. "We got us a couple more pressing matters come up. First thing, we have to find somebody knows how to take a bomb out of the swimming pool."

That got the man's dumb eyes focused on him.

"How did a bomb get in the swimming pool?"

"Let's come back to it," Donnell said. "We also have a matter, this lady called. Say she gonna blow you up if you don't give her some money."

Donnell waited for the man's mind to work and put this and that together. Like he fooled with the Alpha-Bits floating in his milk sometimes, trying to make a word out of the letters.

"The lady that called put the bomb in the swimming pool?"

"I 'magine she's the one."

"Is it gonna go off?"

"I don't know. That's why I say we have to get us a bomb man."

"Call the police, they'll take care of it."

"I'm afraid of what she'd do. You know, like she might be a crazy woman and it would set her off."

Right then Beaver's mama on the TV, a cute woman, began fussing at Mr. Beaver, giving him some shit. Doing it just at the right time.

The man shook his head, didn't know what to think. Had an idea then and said, "Was it Robin that called?"

"I suspect, but I don't know her voice."

"How much does she want?"

Here we go.

"Say she like two million, cash money, no checks. Get it from the bank and have it ready."

Look at the man blink his eyes.

"Yeah, she say to have it ready. You know, like in a box? See, then when she phones again, to tell us the time and place she wants it? You suppose to give it to me and I deliver it."