I knew this was going to happen. Hall was dead, I bet.
Henry squeezed my hand a little tighter when I rolled down my window to get some of that nice thick summer night air. When I was ready, I asked, “What happened to Hall?”
I looked at the back of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s neck. He must’ve just had a haircut because there was a red rash running along the edge of his white pharmacy jacket. Mother used to tell Daddy that Vaseline was good for that.
Mr. Fitzpatrick put his eyes back on the road. “Hall got himself into a little bit of trouble and he’s down at the jail right now.”
Troo, who it turned out was not sleeping at all, said, “Did he get in a fight?”
Mr. Fitzpatrick said, “Hall hit Mr. Jerbak over the head with a beer bottle and now Mr. Jerbak is in the hospital.”
“And he’s in jail for that?” Troo asked, surprise in her voice. Kids were always getting hit and nobody had to go to jail.
“Charges are being pressed against Hall,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. He turned on his blinker, which made that soft tick tick tick noise. We turned down Fifty-ninth Street and went past Delancey’s Corner Store, which made me think of poor Sara Heinemann going to get her mother some milk and maybe have a glass of Ovaltine before she got tucked into bed and instead she ended up dead. A couple people in shorts and T-shirts were still sitting out on their front steps, drinking out of beer bottles and listening to the radio that was playing some boogie-woogie. One of them waved to Mr. Fitzpatrick and he waved back.
“Can I press some of those charges against Greasy Al?” Troo asked.
Mr. Fitzpatrick shook his head and frowned. “Don’t you worry, the Molinari boy won’t be bothering you again, Troo. Officer Rasmussen will see to that.”
I could tell from the way he had talked to him at the drugstore that Mr. Fitzpatrick admired Rasmussen. I so wanted to tell him how it was Rasmussen who had murdered and molested his niece Sara. Because of that rash on his neck and because his boy had homofeelya, it made me think he’d understand about some things. “Officer Rasmussen…,” I started to say.
Mr. Fitzpatrick’s eyes moved back to the rearview mirror. “What about Officer Rasmussen?”
“He’s… he’s…”
“Yeah… he’s a great guy, isn’t he?” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. “Dave’s been a real help to the family during this hard time.”
I squeezed Henry’s hand so hard that he yelped out.
“I want to go home,” I said the second he parked in front of Granny’s.
Mr. Fitzpatrick put his arm along the top of his seat and turned toward me and Henry. He had a nice gold watch and his arm was hairy on his white skin. I had to keep myself from laying my face on that arm because it looked so much like Daddy’s. “I’m sorry, Sally. Officer Rasmussen doesn’t think it’s a good idea for you to go home right now.”
I bet he didn’t. Rasmussen just wanted to know where I was so later, when it got good and dark, he could tell Granny he’d come to take me home, and because she was so old she’d just hand me over to him like a day-old newspaper.
Mr. Fitzpatrick looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go pick up my wife now, girls. You’ll be fine here for tonight.”
Troo, who must’ve gotten punched a lot harder than I thought because she was being way too quiet, said, “Okay.” Mr. Fitzpatrick got out of the car and opened Troo’s door for her and gave her nose a quick look-see and said, “Keep ice on that tonight. It should feel better tomorrow.”
I turned to Henry and gave him my best smile, the one where my dimples got so big you could hide a piece of Dubble Bubble in ’em. Henry said, “See you at the funeral tomorrow, Sally.” And out the window he called, “Don’t worry about your bike, Troo. Pop put it in the store to keep it safe. And your ice cream cone, too.”
Troo said, “It’s not an ice… aw, forget it,” and turned toward Granny’s.
I felt astounded, because suddenly I knew why Troo wanted to do that smooching with Willie. More than anything I wanted to feel my lips against Henry Fitzpatrick’s fuzzy pale cheek and whisper thank you for rescuing us from Greasy Al. But Mr. Fitzpatrick was right there and I wasn’t sure how he’d take that.
After the car pulled away from the curb, Troo said, “You like him?”
“Yes,” I said. We watched the Rambler go down the street. Henry’s white hand was flapping good-bye out the back window.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, looking at her nose.
“I’ve had worse.”
She was thinking about the car crash because she always got this look on her face that was different from all her other looks. A sort of Statue of Liberty look.
“Do you miss him?” I asked.
She knew I meant Daddy but she pretended she didn’t. She threw the ice down on the grass and reached into her pocket for an L &M. She lit it and then took a deep puff, blowing it into a ring that floated over my head. She grinned at my amazement. “Fast Susie showed me how to do that. It’s called a French smoke ring.” The smoke floated above her head like a halo. “Let’s go see Ethel. I wouldn’t mind playin’ some cards with her and Mr. Gary. In fact, that would be a fantastic thing to do right now, go play some old maid. And maybe we could get Ethel to give us some of those blond brownies. I’m famished.”
I was so relieved. Troo was feeling lots better because she had just said four f words. I was also relieved that I would not have to sit in that old chair of Granny’s by the window and watch Uncle Paulie gluing Popsicle sticks together while he whistled old-timey songs, knowing that Rasmussen knew where I was sleeping. So I said the one thing my sister never got sick of hearing. “Troo genius.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We were standing on Mrs. Galecki’s front porch. After we rang the doorbell, nobody answered and I got worried that they might all be asleep. From where I stood I could see the top of our house and the Kenfields’ and I knew there would be some Dottie ghost-crying going on in her bedroom. And, of course, I could see Rasmussen’s house because I was standing ten feet away from it. His house was bigger than Mrs. Galecki’s. Not a duplex, but a house where only one family lived, like our old one out in the country. I so missed that house. Even peeing Jerry Amberson. Things seemed a lot safer out there, if you didn’t count the farmers that were always getting an arm or leg whacked off by an International Harvester like what happened to Mr. Jerry Amberson, who had a hand that was hard and hollow and the fingernails were painted a fancy lady pink. But at least out in the country there wasn’t a murderer or a molester. Who was a cop. Whose house I could touch right this minute.
“You know, it’s gonna be the block party soon,” I said to Troo, who looked awfully tired from our seven-block walk over from Granny’s. I always mentioned the block party when I wanted to cheer her up because it was her favorite thing about summer. That’s when she’d been crowned Queen of the Playground, her favorite part being that rhinestone crown I had told her more than once did not look good with her snowsuit.
Troo didn’t answer.
“And the state fair.” I added on her third favorite thing about summer.
Troo was sniffing the air. The wind was blowing those chocolate chip cookie smells our way. Those ovens baked day and night, night and day up at the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory. Mother always said the smell of those cookies gave her a stomachache. Maybe that smell was what had made her gallbladder so bad.
“Troo?”
“Shhh… I think I hear something.” She stepped back down off the porch and looked back up at the house. Then I heard something, too. I followed her around the side of Mrs. Galecki’s that was so close to Rasmussen’s. Laughter got louder with each step.
Sitting in the screened porch that Mr. Gary Galecki had built for his mother right after the Fourth last summer, so she could enjoy the rest of the summer nights without getting bitten up by the skeeters, were Ethel and Ray Buck Johnson and Mr. Gary. Me and Troo had watched while Mr. Gary built that porch for his ma. The wood smelled so good when he cut it on that buzzing saw. We would get him drinks of water when he asked us to and he told us stories about California and how he had oranges that grew on trees right in his backyard and that he had the loveliest rose-bushes, over twenty of them. Mr. Gary said that maybe someday Troo and me could come out there to visit him and he would take us to Disneyland.