Queen's Park

CHAPTER SEVEN

“How could I not protect Ernie?” Nonno waved his right hand in the air and changed lanes without looking. There was a scream of brakes. A horn howled. He glanced in the rear view mirror. The driver behind gave a single finger salute. Nonno returned the favour. “Okay, okay,” he said to the doll and placed both hands on the wheel. They turned into the parking lot.

“There’s a couple of nice dress stores here,” Nonno said. He eased in between a Chevy pickup and Toyota Corolla.

He caught a glimpse of blue in the rear view mirror, followed by a screech of rubber on pavement. The blue car’s front doors swung open. A pair of men stepped out. One wore a black ball cap with a flaming red C and the other wore mirrored sunglasses. The man with the ball cap shook his fist, “Hey, old man, where’d you learn to drive?”

Nonno glanced ahead. There was no place to go. He looked at Nonna, “Just a couple of hotheads.”

The men were on either side of the van. “Are you deaf? You cut me off!” said the man with the ball cap. His face was against the glass on Nonno’s side.

“Who’s the cow in there with you?” Sunglasses peered in the other side.

Nonno felt his anger turn white hot.

“Hey, she’s naked!” Ball Cap laughed.

Nonno pushed the door open against Ball Cap. “Son a ma bitch!” Nonno released the seat belt and had his feet on the pavement when Ball Cap pushed back. The door pinned Nonno’s shoulder and head. Ball Cap shoved. Ernesto screamed.

“It’s a love doll!” Sunglasses laughed.

Ernesto pushed against the door. “Culo!” The pressure on his head and shoulder eased.

“Gimme some help over here!” Ball Cap said.

Ernesto heaved. The van rocked. Ball Cap skidded backwards. “Hurry!” Ball Cap leaned against the door. “The old bastard’s strong!”

A horn blast froze Ball Cap. Ernesto was outside of the van. Sunglasses looked around the parking lot. Heads turned in their direction. “Forget it. He’s just a dirty old man.”

Nonno kicked out and just missed connecting with Ball Cap’s backside. Ball Cap and Sunglasses crawled inside their car and slammed the doors. Nonno leaned his right palm against the van’s hood then snatched it away from the heat. Making a fist with his right hand, he raised an obscene salute. The car sped away. The old man eased his bruised hip up against the sun baked metal of the van. The horn continued to howl. Nonno leaned inside. “Are you okay?” The doll’s head was jammed up against the horn. Nonno pushed her upright. In the sudden quiet he said, “Sure I’m okay.” He wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead. “No, I promised you a new dress today.”

Nonno rubbed at the pain. “It’s just a little bump on the head. Don’t worry about those two, they’re long gone.” He shut his door, moved around to Nonna’s side and opened the door. Nonno pulled her arms and let the doll fall over his right shoulder. Her hair brushed against his backside. He locked his right arm behind Nonna’s knees. “No, your bum won’t get sun burnt.” He shut the door. “How else am I gonna pick out the right dress if you don’t come along?” Nonno crossed the pavement, stepped up onto the sidewalk and walked through the automatic door. “Don’t worry, everybody’ll think you’re a doll.”

Nonno saw a five year old boy with chocolate down the front of his white T-shirt. He stuck a thumb behind a loose front tooth and lifted it like a door hinged at the top. “Hi, I’m Randy!”

“Oh, hello,” Nonno said then whispered to the doll, “See, I said hello.”

Nonno looked from left to right noting the pointing fingers, open mouths and smiles hidden behind palms.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get a wheelchair.” Where the hallways in the mall intersected, a green kiosk sat with a customer service sign under the 6-49 logo. Nonno got down on one knee to ease Nonna down onto a bench. He carefully crossed one of her legs over the other and turned to the lady at the kiosk. “I need a wheelchair.”

The woman smiled back. Her name tag said MARJ.

Nonno leaned closer and said, “She’s too heavy to carry. Just don’t tell her I said so.” He smiled.

Marj brushed at a stray hair over her ear. She looked over Nonno’s shoulder, then back at him. The furrows in her forehead got deeper.

“Need to buy her some clothes.” Then Nonno said, hoping the woman would understand if only he could explain. “Told her she don’t need clothes in the summer but we can’t go anyplace without someone making some smart aleck remark.”

“This is really unusual.” Marj looked to her left and spotted the phone.

“MY WIFE,” Nonno said the words slowly and at a traffic stopping volume, “NEEDS SOME CLOTHES.”

Marj looked down at the counter top. Nonno read her indecision. They glanced at a sign on the counter: The Customer is Always Right. Both smiled.

Nonno looked over his shoulder, “I wasn’t being rude,” he said to the doll.

Marj almost broke a nail in her hurry to open the gate. “Your wheelchair is right here, sir.”

Nonno said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” Marj pushed the chair through the open gate and rolled it beside the doll.

“I’ll bring it back… ” Nonno said.

“No problem.” Marj held her palms forward while backing away.

Reading the indecision in her eyes, he said, “I know, you’re thinking a good husband would have bought her a dress sooner.”

“Thank you, Mister?”

“Ernesto, just call me Ernesto.”

“Thank you Mr. Ernesto.”

“No, it’s Ernesto. No Mister,” Nonno said.

“Okay, Nomisterernesto.”

“Okay, I won’t bother the poor woman anymore,” he said to the doll. Then he said to Marj, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ernesto lifted Nonna into the chair, bent her knees and rested her feet on the flat metal foot pads.

“Hey Mom, that woman’s naked!” The voice was at least twice as big as the child. Ernesto caught a glimpse of her before an arm appeared from inside the western wear store to pull her back. “But Mom!”

Ernesto leaned close to his wife, “I know, I know, she’s just a kid. Just like Ernie.”

Sunlight knifed through rooftop windows. It formed sharp shadows on the Italian marble floor.

“Remember that holiday in Italy?” Nonno said.

They passed into shadow.

“The sun was strong like today. You had to stay in the shade during the hottest time. Miguel was born nine months later.”

In silence, they passed through another patch of sunlight. Red and white SALE signs adorned one shop. “Wanna try here?”

They stopped in front of a mannequin who held her arms out to them. She wore a red one piece bathing suit. “No? You still wanna keep looking?”

Ernesto pushed her past a sports shop, craft shop and book store. Passing a stack of books, he read a cover: Getting Away with Murder. Nonno looked away, then said, “I don’t think it’s an instruction manual. We don’t need it. Who’s gonna think to dig that deep?”

Nonno leaned forward, listening to the doll. “The other family’s gotta big reputation around town. Even if the police do start to dig, they’ll have to wait while the lawyers argue. By then, there won’t be much to find. Just worry about Leona. Her name shoulda been Big Mouth.”

A woman stepped in front of them. She pulled a cell phone from a black leather handbag. Just visible in the V of her white silk blouse was the business end of a gold crucifix.

“Watch out!” Ernesto said.

The woman stopped. For over three seconds she studied the doll. She looked Ernesto in the eye and said, “Pervert!”

Ernesto was caught in the heavy wake of the woman’s perfume. “Donna de la notte!”

“What did you say?” the woman said.

Ernesto pushed on to The Sony Store. For an instant he and Nonna were caught on a wide screen TV. The nipple of one of her breasts caught his eye. For a moment he was drowning. Nonno’s feet couldn’t reach bottom. Fatigue reached out with cold hands. He took a long breath. Pushing on, he felt the warmth of equilibrium returning.

“She called me a pervert. I called her a hooker.” He looked left. The mannequin in a store window had her hands on her hips. She wore a sleeveless cotton dress with blue, red, white and pink petals.

“You sure?” Nonno turned into the store.

The woman behind the counter might have been 25. She wore the same dress as the mannequin. Red hair hung down on either side of her face.

“We want that dress.” The desperation in Ernesto’s voice could have easily been mistaken for command.

The clerk’s head lifted. Her green eyes focused on the doll. She smiled. “I don’t think we ordered any mannequins.” Ernesto said, “This is my wife and she would like to try that dress on.”

The clerk stepped back, clutching at the neck of her dress revealing STEPHANIE on a silver name tag.

“She knows I don’t mean HER dress,” Ernesto said to the doll. “Okay, I’ll tell her we need a dress to fit you!”

Stephanie looked at the door then appeared to do a mental calculation of her commission. “She looks like a size six or seven. Which would you like to try on first?”

Lane leaned on Ernesto Rapozo’s doorbell for the third time. Double-checking the house number, he said, “2412, that’s it.”

He walked to the side of the house and opened the gate. Shade covered the north side of the yard. The weight of the sun lifted from his shoulders.

At the back of the yard, near the garage, he could see the back of what he assumed was Ernesto’s love doll. An accented male voice said, “Don’t worry about the police. Ernie’ll be fine.”

Lane stood out of sight near the edge of the house where raspberry bushes bent low with ripe fruit.

“He doesn’t remember what happened,” Nonno said.

Lane loosened his tie and felt sweat collecting along his close cut hairline.

“Don’t worry about Leona. She’s the one who made me promise. She’s got a big mouth but she’s Ernie’s grandmother. Leona always says she’d lie down and die for her kids. She understands.”

Lane reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his handkerchief. He lifted it to his forehead. The almost imperceptible crack of cartilage made him freeze. No way the old man would hear that, Lane thought.

“They’re never gonna…,” the old man said.

Silence wavered in the heat.

“What do you mean there’s somebody here?”

The brim of Ernesto’s ball cap appeared from around the corner of the house closely followed by his nose and beach ball belly.

“Hello, I’m Detective Lane.” Silently he cursed his inability to stay still.

“Ernesto,” the old man said and pointed pruning sheers at Lane’s belly.

“Ernie Rapozo’s grandfather?”

“Yes. That’s me.”

“That’s a nasty bruise.” Lane indicated the swelling on the side of Ernesto’s head.

Ernesto reached up with his free hand. He winced as fingertips brushed the bruise. “Trouble at the mall this morning. No police around then.”

Lane ignored the implied accusation. “What kind of trouble?” “Doesn’t matter now.”

“Mind if I ask you a few questions?” Lane moved out of the shade.

Ernesto looked at the doll. “Okay.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

Lane wondered if the old man was talking to him or the doll.

“My wife says you should sit down.” Ernesto pointed with the pruning sheers to an empty lawn chair.

Lane moved around the other side of the table, pulled out the chair and sat. “Thank you.”

“Helen says you should take your jacket off.”

Lane slipped the jacket off and hung it on the back of the chair. What’s the best way to play this? he thought. If the Ernesto thought the woman was real, then he’d have to follow the old man’s lead. “Your wife is very considerate.”

“Iced tea?” Ernesto said.

“That would be nice.”

Lane watched the man’s hand as he set the green handled sheers down on the table. The old man’s palm was as wide as a soup bowl with fingers callused and nails black with earth.

He watched Ernesto move up two steps, open the door and kick off his shoes before stepping inside.

Lane turned to the doll. Her eyes were blue. Her lips, too red to be real. The shade from a sun hat created a semicircle across the tops of her breasts. The sharp, polished edge of a crease in the dress told him it had been ironed recently. Its floral pattern matched the flowers along the inside of the fence.

The latch on the screen door rattled. “In Italy a grandmother is called Nonna,” Ernesto said as he backed out the door with a tray, three full tumblers and a pitcher of iced tea. He set a tumbler down in front of the doll, another in front of Lane and sat down between them with his own glass.

Lane lifted the glass in appreciation. He sipped. “Real tea.”

“Of course. Nonna likes it that way. Always keep a pitcher in the fridge.”

Lane looked at Nonna. For an instant he thought a smile creased the corners of her lips. He turned to the brown of the Ernesto’s eyes. “Since your grandson was attacked, we’ve been unable to determine Mr. Swatsky’s whereabouts.”

Ernesto turned to Nonna and then back to Lane. The old man held onto his silence.

“It’s been six days since we found his car at the airport. We’ve been unable to contact his wife.”

“The radio says he stole three million,” Ernesto said.

“I’m investigating the disappearance.”

Ernesto put his glass down and rubbed at his shoulder.

“Hurt the shoulder when you got the bump on the head?”

Lane’s voice was genuinely sympathetic.

Ernesto turned to Nonna before answering the question. It was a pattern he followed throughout their conversation.

“Yes.”

“Anyway, since you live so close to your grandson, I thought you might be able to shed some light on the disappearance of Mr. Swatsky.”

“Maybe a little.” Ernesto took a drink.

“Did you ever meet Mr. Swatsky?”

“Once.”

Did his pupils just dilate? Lane felt the sharp shiver of excitement in his belly and fought to keep it out of his voice. Dilating pupils were often the telltale sign of a lying suspect. “When was that?”

“When Miguel, our son, married Beth,” Ernesto said.

“Where is Miguel right now?”

“Tunisia. Works for an oil company.”

Lane felt himself easing into the flow of the conversation. “Does he see his son very often?”

“Every two months he’s back for a week or two.”

“Was Miguel in town when Swatsky disappeared?” Lane said.

“Nope. He’ll be back soon.”

Wait. Be patient, Lane told himself. Set it up carefully, try to make him uneasy, then watch for the reaction. “What was your grandson’s condition when you arrived at Leona’s house?”

Ernesto’s face turned red with anger. He fought to control his voice. “Had a cut on his nose.” He closed his eyes and drew his right forefinger across the bridge of his nose. “He was… How do you say?… Unconscious. Out cold.”

Almost there. Lane was operating almost entirely on intuition. “What was Leona’s condition?”

“Not good.” Ernesto put his left hand on Nonna’s. “She was having trouble catching her breath. And she was worried the boy wouldn’t wake up. That Swatsky, what he tried to do to my Ernie!”

Good, he’s looking at me. Now’s the time, Lane thought. “Do you know where Robert Swatsky is?”

Ernesto looked at the doll, then turned back to face Lane. A slight dilation of the pupils. To Lane it was as significant as the difference between midnight and noon. “Nope,” Ernesto shook his head.