"It was supposed to be sad!"
He took hold of my chin and squeezed it. "Our bestseller. Sammy Bayer on the New York Times bestseller list. You can't imagine how happy I was when I saw your name there the first time."
His hair was brushed back and gelled into place, GQ magazine style. His rep tie was elegant and understated; the shirt as smooth and white as fresh milk. He looked either like a successful stockbroker or a professional basketball coach. The same crazy energy I remembered so well glowed on him, but his face was extremely pale and there were deep blue circles under his eyes. It looked like he was halfway through recuperating from a serious illness.
"Who's this?"
"My daughter Cassandra."
He put out a hand to shake, but Cass surprised both of us by stepping forward and embracing him. He looked at me over her shoulder and smiled. "Hey, what's this?"
She took a step back. "I know you already. I've been hearing stories about you since I was a baby."
"Really?" He was embarrassed and very pleased. "What'd your dad say about me?"
"I know about the Coke-bottle bombs, the VFW Hall, Anthony Scaro's Chevelle –"
"Whoa! Come on into my office before you get me arrested."
The office was huge and bare of anything but a big scarred desk and two chairs facing it.
"It looks exactly the same as it did twenty years ago!"
Sitting on the other side of the desk, Frannie looked over his shoulder at the room. "I took the Rembrandt down so you'd feel at home. How many times did they have us in here, Sam?"
"You more than me, chief. They should have put up a memorial plaque for you in here."
"I got tired of sitting on your side of the desk and havin' someone hit me on the head with the Yellow Pages. I thought I'd take over and get to do the hitting."
My daughter the pacifist stiffened. "Do you really do that? Hit people with telephone books?"
"Nah, Cassandra, the good old days are over. Now they make us use psychology. But now and then if they get fresh we sneak in and poke 'em with an electric cattle prod."
As I so well remembered, his face gave away nothing. All innocent calm and empty, that perfected poker face had gotten him out of a lot of trouble twenty-five years before.
"Tell her you're joking, Frannie."
"I'm joking, Cass. So, Mr. Bayer Aspirin, how come you've graced us with your presence after two decades?"
"Before we get into that, tell me how in God's name you ended up chief of police? I was sure you'd be –"
"In jail? Thank you. That's what everyone says. I didn't have a religious conversion, if that's what you're worried about. Better – I went to Vietnam. Things happened. Good guys died but I didn't. You remember Andy Eldritch? He was eating a can of Bumble Bee tuna his mom had sent and then suddenly he was dead two feet away from me. I'd just asked him if I could have a bite. Things like that. I got pissed off. Life couldn't be that worthless, you know? When I got out, I went to Macalester College in St. Paul and got a B.S. Then, I don't know, I became a cop. It made sense."
"Are you married?"
"Was, but no more. Now I'm single as a thumb."
"Dad's been married three times."
Frannie opened a desk drawer and took out a pack of Marlboros. "Doesn't surprise me. Your dad was always odder than a Brussels sprout. I guess he still is."
"You can say that again. Now he's dating a woman named Veronica Lake."
"Isn't she dead? Well, it takes all kinds."
"Fuck you, Frannie. Listen, remember Pauline Ostrova?"
"Sure, you pulled her out of the river. The day we all grew up."
"You remember everything about that day?"
"Damn right I do, Sam! How many people get murdered in this burg?"
"How many do?"
"Two, as long as I've been on the force. That's seventeen years. Both marital things. Very pathetic and uninteresting."
"Who did it? Who killed Pauline?"
"Who do they say did it, or who did it?" He lit a cigarette and closed his lighter with a hard snap.
Cass and I looked at each other and waited for him to continue. He didn't.
Smiling, he wiggled his eyebrows. "I should have been an actor. How's that for dramatic tension? I think they should cast Andy Garcia as me in the movie.
"The best part of being chief of police is I get to look in all the old files and see what really went on here when we were kids. There's still a file on you, Sam. Now that you're famous, you think I could get some money telling the world you were once half a juvenile delinquent?"
"Frannie, what about Pauline?"
"The case was open-and-shut. She had a boyfriend from college named Edward Durant. They arrested him, he confessed, they cut a deal with the prosecutor and sent him up to Sing Sing for life. He's dead."
Cass gasped.
Frannie ran a hand through his hair. "This is ugly stuff, Cassandra. You sure you want to hear it?"
She licked her lips, nodded slowly, then quickly.
"As soon as he got up there, the bad boys started using him for a fu – uh, love doll until he couldn't take it anymore and hanged himself in his cell."
"Jesus! How old was he?"
"Twenty-one. Nice-looking boy. Highest honors at Swarthmore. But he didn't do it."
"Who did?" I realized I was breathing too quickly.
"I'm not positive, but I've got my suspicions. You didn't know Pauline did you? She was from another dimension. Why do you want to know about her now?"
"Because I want to write a book about what really happened to her."
Frannie took a long drag on the cigarette and put his hand behind his head. "Interesting idea." He looked at the ceiling. "Come on, I want to show you a couple of things." He stood up and gestured for us to follow.
Out on the street he shot his cuffs and walked over to an unmarked Chevrolet. "Hop in."
Driving down the street in a police car with McCabe at the wheel made me laugh. "Frannie, I wish there was some kind of magic available where I could go back and say to fifteen-year-old me, 'Do I have something to tell you,'
"He'd never believe you. Here, look at this shitty store. You buy a pair of shoes in there, you're barefoot in two months. Remember Al Salvato?"
'Green Light'?"
"Right." He looked in the rearview mirror at Cass. "Al Salvato was a svacim we grew up with. Whenever someone said something he agreed with, he'd say, 'Green light.' He thought it was cute."
"But Frannie didn't. He punched him in the nose for it."
"That's right. Salvato owns three stores here now. This is one of them. He brought cheap shoes, a sex store, and bad Greek food to town. Ran for mayor last year and lost, thank God."
Chief McCabe's tour of Crane's View went up and down and all around. He pointed out who owned what, who of our old friends still lived there, and gave a funny running history of what had happened since I'd left. His information only furthered what I already assumed: New money had moved up from Manhattan, thus terminally yuppifying much of the old homestead. There was a cafe now that served cappuccino and croissants, an Audi dealer, a vegetarian restaurant. What was left existed in a time warp that made the rest of the village look like it hadn't changed a bit. Witness Scrappy's Diner.
Cass asked more questions than I did. From them, I was touched to hear she remembered many of the stories I had told her over the years. She and Frannie chatted away as he drove us around. After a while I tuned them out.