Hooligans

DEEDEE

At DeeDee‟s suggestion, she and I went back to her place. It was ten minutes away, in the restored

section of town not far from where Della Norman and Tony Logeto had died a few days ago.

On the way she asked, “Shouldn‟t we report this to somebody?”

“I‟m one of the somebody‟s you report it to,” 1 said. “Besides, the car‟s probably registered to some

nonentity. By now they‟ve either dumped it in the river or dropped it at some body shop. We‟ll never

see it again.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about these things.”

“It‟s what I do.”

“I thought you just did investigative work.”

“Sometimes it upsets people.”

“Upsets people” she cried. “Is that what you call it?”

The house was tucked among shaggy oaks, a two-hundred-year-old Revolutionary house that had

been meticulously restored, as had the others on the street. It was like stepping into the eighteenth

century. The inside was just as authentic. It was a museum piece, filled with bric-a-brac, old etchings

and maps, and antique furniture that was as authentic as it was uncomfortable. There wasn‟t a cushion

iii the living room.

“This was my inheritance,” she said. “Dad didn‟t have much, but he bought this house for a song

when it was a falling-down wreck. He and Tony did most of the restoration work themselves. It took

them years.”

“Does Tony live here with you?”

“Sometimes,” she said vaguely. We made small talk for ten or fifteen minutes, trying to talk past the

awkwardness of the situation. Finally I got Lark‟s phone number and she went off to make coffee.

Lark answered the phone after eight or nine rings. Her voice was still sultry, but not quite as pleasant

as earlier in the evening.

“Hello?” she said tentatively.

“I‟m sorry to bother you,” I said. “DeeDee gave me your number. I need to talk to the Stick. It‟s very

important.”

“Who?”

“Mickey.”

“You could have waited just about two minutes more, you know,” she said, “just two little minutes.”

“This‟ll take about thirty seconds.”

“Trash. The spell is broken.”

A moment later Stick‟s whiskey tenor rasped its hello.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, “but there‟s something I didn‟t tell you back there.”

“Yeah?” His interest was lukewarm.

“I got a good look at the shooter in the car. It was Turk Nance.”

“Is that supposed to be a surprise?” he replied.

“Just thought you‟d like to know,” I said.

“Breakfast,” he said. “I‟ll meet you at the hotel at nine. We‟ll grab some groceries and go hunting.”

“You sound out of breath. Have you been jogging?”

“Fuck off, Kilmer.”

Click.

DeeDee returned with the coffee. We sat on matching high-back deacon‟s benches, facing each other

across a rock maple serving table.

“Okay,” I said. “Where were we?”

She stirred cream into her coffee and tasted it before she answered my question.

“I haven‟t seen or heard from Tony since Saturday. It‟s really uncommon for him to go more than a

day or two without a call.”

“Maybe he‟s out of town,” I suggested.

“He said he‟d be back Sunday night or early Monday.”

“That‟s only a couple of days.”

“I have this dreadful feeling something‟s wrong,” she said, then after a moment of thought, added,

“Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

“That would help.”

“Tony‟s been in trouble before.”

“Oh?”

“Three years ago. He and this friend of his, who‟s a shrimper, were caught smuggling marijuana.”

“How much?”

“A lot. Two or three hundred pounds.”

“That‟s a lot.”

“He was sentenced to two to five years. It could have been worse, but it was his first offense.”

“How much time did he do?”

“Almost a year.”

“Has he been clean since then?”

“Clean?”

“Out of trouble?”

She nodded.

“Why did he do it? I mean, was there anything other than the money?”

She toyed with her coffee, thinking about the question.

“He wanted something he couldn‟t afford,” she said finally. “All the money in the world couldn‟t buy

it.”

“Doe Findley?”

“Raines.”

“Right, Raines.”

“So you know about that?”

“That‟s all I know.”

“It was the same with Tony and Doe as it was with you and me, except you never gave me a second

look. I was always the caretaker‟s ugly little kid.”

“You don‟t know that,” I said. “I happen to be a one-woman man.”

“Still?” It was a gentle pass and I passed it gently.

“Still.”

“That was my ego talking. Anyway, I think Tony‟s been in love with Doe since the first time he ever

saw her. I don‟t blame her for what happened. Harry Raines was busy running around the state

politicking for the gambling laws. She was lonely and Tony was always around. It just happened.”

“So he decided to make a quick killing and take her away from all that?”

“No, it was over before he got in trouble. But in his mind, I think Tony feels if he has a decent car and

money in the bank. . . oh, I don‟t know. Maybe he was just rebelling against the whole system, getting

even for things he never had. He never really talked about it. When he went to prison, all he said was

that he was glad Dad died before it happened.”

“And you think he‟s mixed up in dope again?”

“That‟s what I‟m afraid of. He left Saturday morning. We went to dinner Friday night and he told me

he had this job to do, that it was absolutely safe. „Not to worry,‟ he told me, „I‟ll be back for Sunday

brunch.‟ I haven‟t heard from him since.”

“He didn‟t say what the job was?”

She shook her head. “Things have been rough for him this past year. I offered to help, but he turned

me down. I think he was desperate.”

“Did he say anything about narcotics?”

“All he said was „After this, we‟ll be as good as the rest of them.‟ He wouldn‟t say any more.”

“Did he drive when he left?”

She nodded. “A white Mustang. I think it‟s a „79. But it looks brand-new.”

“How about the license?”

“I‟ll get it for you.”

She got up and rooted through a large mahogany desk, leafing through papers until she found a

duplicate of the car registration. She handed it to me, along with a photograph from her wallet. It was

a colour Polaroid of a tallish, dark man, handsome, but a bit too intense, who looked to be in his early

thirties and was built like a lifeguard. He was sitting on the edge of a swimming pool with his legs in

the water.

“I remember him now,” I said.

“I thought perhaps you might check a round. Maybe somebody knows or has heard something,” she

said. “I don‟t want to do anything official. Do you understand?” It was more of a plea than a request.

I nodded. “Sure, I can do that. Is that all?”

“I‟d just like to know he isn‟t.

She didn‟t finish the sentence. She began to tremble. I moved over beside her and put an arm around

her. The more she tried to stop trembling, the worse it got.

“I‟ll check around first thing,” I said, trying to comfort her. “Don‟t worry, I‟m sure he‟s all right. It‟s

been five days. If anything had happened to him, you‟d know it by now.”

I wasn‟t sure that was true, but it sounded good and she bought

it. She was suffering a delayed reaction to both her brother‟s disappearance and the action in the alley.

I gently massaged her neck with two fingers, stroking the tight muscles that ran from the base of her

skull to her shoulders. After a while she loosened up. She shifted, turning toward me, and curled up.

I massaged her neck until my fingers got stiff, and she talked about a time that linked us to the past,

but in different ways.

“It‟s funny, the things I remember about Doe from our school days,” she said, and giggled. “Did you

know,” she went on, as if sharing a secret, “that the maids used to iron Doe‟s underwear? I know that

sounds silly, to remember something like that. But when I heard it, I thought, That‟s the way it should

be. That‟s the way a princess gets treated. That‟s what she is, a princess. Her father is the king and she

lives in a castle on the ocean and nothing bad ever happens to her. I know that‟s not true, though. She

lost Teddy.” She paused and then added, “She lost you.”

“That‟s not quite accurate,” I said. “She didn‟t lose me.”

“Oh yes,” she said with a nod, “she lost you.”

I didn‟t disagree. There wasn‟t anything to disagree with. We had different points of view.

“I used to dream of being Doe,” she said. “When we had a picnic, Doe always carried the flag and the

rest of us cleaned up the trash. It‟s just the way it was. She never asked to be treated special; nice

things just happened to her. I suppose it‟s always that way with the rich.”

She said it almost wistfully and without malice, like it was an undeniable fact of life, and I suppose it

was, until life inevitably caught up with even the rich. For the flash of a second I considered telling

her what really happened to Teddy, but I didn‟t want to bust her pretty balloon. She seemed to have

control of her memories. Perhaps that‟s why she recalled them with such innocence and without angst.

She had learned the difference between memories and dreams.

She dozed off that way. It felt good there, with her curled up in my lap. I thought I might relax for a

few minutes before going back to the hotel, to make sure she was sleeping soundly. I leaned back and

thought about Tony and DeeDee Lukatis, always on the outside looking in, close enough to savour the

sweet life, but never close enough to taste it. I thought about Tony Lukatis, who tried to make the

dream come true and ended up in jail instead, and DeeDee, harbouring a futile high school dream for

all those years. I fell asleep thinking about them and realizing that in the end, DeeDee, Tony, and I

were not that much different.

I had the same old dream again that night, only this time Tony Lukatis was running on the ridge.

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