At first I thought I hadn’t heard right and that I’d made it up because I was always imagining getting saved. But then he stepped underneath the streetlight and I saw his white skinny legs and my eyes traveled up his body to his chest that was barely wider than a cigar box. He was holding a gun in his two pale hands. Henry Fitzpatrick said louder, “Leave her alone, Greasy Al.” And then the whole world stopped and all you could hear was us breathing hard and all you could smell was Troo’s cigarette burning in the grass and that’s when Mr. Fitzpatrick came out of the drugstore and ran over to see what was happening.
He took the gun out of Henry’s hand and said, “It’s okay now, son. I can take it from here,” and he moved Henry behind him.
Greasy Al got up and hunch-limped off into the dark.
Mr. Fitzpatrick looked after him to make sure he wasn’t coming back and then said, “I’ll call Dave Rasmussen as soon as we clean Troo up here.” He picked her up in his arms and Henry ran ahead of him to hold open the door. I looked down and there were my and Troo’s handprints that we had done last summer when Mr. Fitzpatrick had the sidewalk patched because it had a big hole in it and he said he didn’t want anybody to twist an ankle. Our hands looked so small next to Troo’s coonskin cap laying there like it was dead.
Henry stuck his head out the drugstore door and said, “You better get in here. Pop says we might have to take Troo to the hospital. She could have a broken nose.” Then he went back inside.
I was holding on to Troo’s beautiful Schwinn for dear life. I didn’t want to go back in there. I just wanted to run home and go down into the basement and crawl into that hidey-hole because I had let something bad happen to my little sister.
Henry came out of the drugstore and walked over to me. “It’s okay. She’s going to be okay. Pop says now that maybe it’s just a bad lump. He’s gonna go get the car and take the two of you home and you won’t ever have to worry about Greasy Al again.”
That wasn’t true. Because last year Greasy Al stuck Teddy Mahlberg in the leg with his switchblade and nobody did a darn thing about it. I was there at the playground when it happened. Saw the whole thing. Greasy Al got mad because Teddy beat him in the Mumbly Peg knife game they played sometimes on the grass next to the steps. Bobby called the fuzz, but nothing happened to Greasy Al because Mr. Molinari of Molinari’s Ristorante Italiano was friends with police sergeant D’Amico and they laughed and said boys will be boys and slapped each other on the back right in front of me.
I let Henry lead me back into the drugstore. Mr. Fitzpatrick had laid Troo out right on the soda fountain counter. How nice of him not to mention all the stuff falling out of her pockets. Band-Aids and Dubble Bubble and that pack of red-and-white L &Ms like somehow she knew she might need them later. She turned her head toward mine when I sat down on the red counter stool. “Stop crying,” she said, all persnickety. Henry went over to one of the shelves and picked up a box of Kleenex and brought it back to me. Mr. Fitzpatrick put some ice he got from behind the soda fountain on Troo’s nose and then said he had to go make a phone call. “Did he get the bike?” Troo whispered. “Did he?”
I shook my head.
Troo smiled, and if she coulda she woulda laughed out loud, because that’s the way Troo was. She didn’t ever seem to feel pain all that much. But it would have driven her Virginia Cunningham insane if Greasy Al had limped off with that bike.
With the drugstore lights real soft, I thought how much Henry looked like Earl Flynn, who was Earl Flynn no matter what Nell said. No, not actually looked like him. But Henry had that kind of bravery. So right at that moment I knew I would marry Henry Fitzpatrick even if he was a homo because nobody could ever impress me the way he had when he stood up to Greasy Al Molinari. I picked up his hand and held it hard until what little blood it had went somewhere else in his body, hopefully to his heart.
And then the lights from Mr. Fitzpatrick’s Rambler shined into the store and Henry and me helped Troo off the counter.
When we got outside, Rasmussen was there waiting for us. He had Troo’s coonskin cap in his hand, his foot up on the bumper of his squad car.
“Girls,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said, getting out of his car, “you know Officer Rasmussen, right?”
“Yes, we know Officer Rasmussen, don’t we, Sally?” Troo musta been feeling better because she said that in her teasing voice. She snatched the coonskin cap outta Rasmussen’s hand and put it back on her head.
Rasmussen was staring at me. No matter who else was around, it always seemed he only had eyes for me. Couldn’t everybody see that? “Was it the Molinari boy, Sally?”
I nodded but refused to look at him.
“I’ll go look for him,” Rasmussen said. And then he pulled Mr. Fitzpatrick off to the side of his Rambler and said something to him. Mr. Fitzpatrick shook his head after a few minutes, then looked back at Troo and me and said, “God Almighty. Those poor kids.”
I hadn’t heard all of what Rasmussen had told Mr. Fitzpatrick but I did hear him say, in a soft voice, “I’m so sorry about Sara. I know how you’re feeling. How’s Alice holding up?”
“Alice is okay, trying to be strong for her sister,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said back.
Rasmussen looked over and said, “Sally, Mr. Fitzpatrick is going to give you a ride to your granny’s. She’ll know what to do about Troo’s nose.”
They said a few more things in low man voices and ended it off with Rasmussen saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Lou.”
Mr. Fitzpatrick shook Rasmussen’s hand with both of his and said, “Thanks for everything, Dave. Really appreciate it.”
Rasmussen gave me one more look and drove off.
While I watched the taillights of the squad car scurrying through the night like an Edward G. Robinson dirty rat, I promised myself that when I was able to prove how Rasmussen had first murdered Junie Piaskowski and then Sara Heinemann, I would make Rasmussen get down on his knees and apologize to Mr. Fitzpatrick right before they strapped him into the electric chair and baked him blacker than Nell’s tuna noodle casserole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On the ride over to Granny’s, Henry and I sat in the backseat of his Rambler that still had that certain smell of newness about it. I had not let go of Henry’s hand and it was beginning to sweat but I didn’t mind that at all. That was how I knew I was in love with him, because I didn’t even like to hold Troo’s hand when it got that clammy. Troo was feeling better. Her nose was just a lot bigger. She was sitting in front with Mr. Fitzpatrick, her head resting against the back of the seat. The breeze coming through the car window was drying off the sweat that had popped up on her forehead below her coonskin. She looked like she was almost asleep.
“Sally?” Mr. Fitzpatrick said quietly. He was looking at me in the rearview mirror. Henry’s dad was a white-looking man so it made me wonder if Henry got the homofeelya from him. Mr. Fitzpatrick wore thick black glasses and was almost bald so he had the forehead of a baby but a chin made of stone. I wanted to say to Troo, “Fitzpatrick?” And I hoped she’d say, “Irish.”
“Yes, Mr. Fitzpatrick?” I said.
“Officer Rasmussen just told me that there’s been a little problem with Hall. You need to stay at your granny’s tonight and then tomorrow Nell and Eddie will come and get you.”