The Big Dirt Nap

Fifteen

Two brothers. The last time Lucy hung out with two brothers, she told me about it at great length over outrageously priced vodka at a bar in NYC's meatpacking district. As I recall, they were named Jesse and Frank. No duct tape was involved and a good time was had by all. But this message felt different.

I don't know how long I stood there trying to figure out what to do. Once, when I was a bookstore manager, we received a telephoned bomb threat. For an instant I froze, then I flashed the lights in the store and tried frantically to get the customers to leave. But it was in New York, pre-9/11, so of course they ignored me. Nothing happened, and I always wondered where the bastards were, watching me run around like a lunatic and laughing their asses off. I had that same feeling as I stared at my phone.

If Lucy had sent her message fifteen minutes earlier, O'Malley would still have been here. He would have seen the deer-in-the-headlights expression that was undoubtedly on my face, and would have known what to do. I didn't.

I called up the saved message on the phone and stared at it again, finally thinking to hit reply. Where are you? I keyed in, and waited for an answer. I paced back and forth, jiggling the phone as if to shake out an answer. The phone beeped; another message was coming in. Don't know not more than forty minutes from hotel two brothers DON'T TEXT UNLESS I DO FIRST L

Holy shit. Could she be a little more cryptic? Was she in trouble or was she bragging?

Forty minutes from the hotel wasn't helpful. I'd only been there once. It was on the outskirts of a small town about two blocks long. What was I supposed to do, go to the post office and put up her picture? Shit. I wouldn't tell the cops for now, it could still be an assignation, but I had to tell someone and get a second opinion. I stepped over the piles of papers in my office, grabbed my keys, and went to see my closest adviser, the one person in Springfield I did consider the F word, a friend.

"And for my money, that's the best way to contest a speeding ticket. I've done it three or four times," she said, hands on hips and arching her back the tiniest bit. "What are they gonna say?"

"We don't all look like you, Babe," said a doughy, blond guy with a baby face. "I'm not sure it would have the same effect coming from someone like me." Most of Babe's audience nodded their heads in agreement. A few customers in the diner seemed dubious, but I was willing to bet they'd resurrect whatever advice she was dispensing if the situation arose.

I closed the door behind me and looked for a booth near the window. "Hey, Paula. Have a seat over here. Earl's just leaving. He's going to traffic court tomorrow. I was giving him some pointers."

Earl struck me as the kind of guy who didn't normally get this much attention from a beautiful woman and I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd made up the traffic-court story just to have an opening gambit with Babe.

I climbed onto the counter stool recently vacated and left uncomfortably warm by the pudgy Earl; I slid over to the next seat. Babe poured me a coffee and gave me a long look as if she once again knew there was something on my mind. "Take a number," she whispered, leaning in. "Look at these guys. I've already found one a new mechanic and told another how to cure his wife's imaginary migraines."

The rest of Earl's erstwhile legal team hung around for another fifteen minutes debating the merits of Babe's advice despite the fact that she'd given them all bills, her tacit signal that the conversation was over. I nursed my coffee and waited for them to leave. When they didn't, Babe piled a few homemade sugar donuts onto a plate and led me by the arm to a booth at the back of the diner.

"Alba, take over the counter, okay?" Alba did as she was told, happy to play understudy for her idol.

"They take much?" she asked, pulling off a piece of donut. "Do you need any dough? We were hit once, years ago. I've got protection now." She jerked her head in the direction of the counter, or maybe it was outside, across the street where the police substation was.

I shook my head. "It's not about the robbery." I wasn't sure how much to tell her. I was lousy at asking for help and I didn't want to involve her if this turned out to be something serious.

"A friend of mine is in trouble," I started.

"First off, that's good. Not good, but at least it's not you. Who is it? The one with the philandering husband? No, don't tell me. Let's keep this abstract."

Babe lived for this—she genuinely loved solving other people's problems. In another lifetime she might have been a radio shrink.

"Most problems are either money or men. Okay, your friend's a woman and she's having man trouble," she said, waiting for confirmation.

"Sort of." I started to think this was a bad idea. What if I didn't like what Babe had to say? What if she said Call the cops now, you idiot!? "She may be in a place where she doesn't want to be," I said, dragging my feet.

Babe looked puzzled. "Literally or figuratively?"

"Could be both."

"I hate it when the answer is both," she said, shaking her head and frowning.

Over Babe's shoulder I saw the door open and three of Springfield's finest come in, including Mike O'Malley. Babe turned around to see who I was staring at. "Stay right here," she said. "I give out better advice than a bartender. I'll be right back, I'm just going to go seat those guys. Alba's got her hands full."

Babe led the cops to a booth just ten feet away and it made me realize the Paradise was not the best place for a private conversation. O'Malley excused himself and came over to where I was sitting.

"Ms. Holliday, I thought it was Chinese food that had you hungry an hour later, not pizza. Have you thought of something else that might help us with your break-in?"

It took me five full seconds to answer. I looked from O'Malley to Babe and back to O'Malley. "No," I lied.