“Why would I know that?”
“I didn’t know either ’til some dumb Polack told me at the beer stand.” Skeeter howled into the night sky. “Nothing beats playoff hockey, nothing! Not the Super Bowl, not even the World Series.”
They walked with the post-game crowd and went to a place called the Third Rail Tavern, a sports bar packed with Blackhawks fans wearing jerseys and caps. Gage ordered a draft beer. Skeeter ordered a double Blanton’s bourbon and said to the barman, “Got any Polish beer?”
“Polish beer?” The barman frowned and shook his head as if he were dealing with an idiot. “We have Duvel Golden ale, that’s Belgian. I think Belgium is close to Poland.”
“Duval Golden, I’ll take one.” Skeeter leaned over to Gage and said, “I wonder why he’s in such a foul mood.”
“Maybe he looked in the mirror.”
“That’s it! He looked in the mirror and shattered the glass, like the old hag in Cinderella. Remember that one, Gage? Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“That was Snow White.”
“Snow White, Cinderella, Goldilocks what’s the difference? The fact is he’s an ugly fuck and his face broke the mirror. Where is the nauseating bastard? I need another drink.”
“Shh, here he comes.”
Skeeter and Gage drank round after round as the hours ticked away. With a slight slur in his scratchy voice, Gage said to Skeeter, “You didn’t win that money at Foxwoods, no fuckin’ way you won it there.”
“What’s it matter where I got it? We’re having a good time, aren’t we? We saw the Cubs yesterday, the Blackhawks tonight.”
“It matters, Skeeter. I did a lot of time because I was a sap for the union. Arrested for embezzlement? I couldn’t embezzle if I wanted to. I wouldn’t know how.”
“I know, I know, you took it on the chin.”
“They accused me of mob connections. They called me a liar and a thief.” Gage got off the stool and poked Skeeter in the chest. “Where did you get the fuckin’ money? I wanna know.”
“Quit poking me. I didn’t do nothin’ illegal. I got lucky, that’s all.”
“I don’t believe you, not for a fuckin’ second,” Gage said. “We’re gonna end up in prison. I know we are.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Gage, it’s cool. Nothing shady, I promise.”
“If I had a buck for every time, ah, forget it.”
“Everything’s kosher, swear to God. You believe me, don’t ya?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gage sighed, “jail, the Aces & Eights, what’s the difference?”
“Don’t get discouraged on me. We’re just beginning this journey.”
“Sure we are.” Gage drank more beer. “We’re just beginning.”
“You can be a real downer sometimes.” Skeeter finished the Belgian ale and the glass of Blanton’s, and he stood up. “Man, that stuff’s strong. I’m practically hammered.”
“Practically?” Gage held up his mug. “Me, too.”
“I’ve had enough of this joint.” Skeeter jerked his head. “Let’s get outta here and hit Route 66, the Will Rogers Highway. Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, the roadway that built a continent, the Third Coast to the West Coast!”
“You want to leave now, at this hour? We’re half in the bag.”
“So what,” Skeeter said. “I called the hotel. The valet is bringing the car over.”
“He’s bringing it here, to the Third Rail?”
“I said I’d give him a whopping tip.”
“What about our clothes?”
“He’s packing them up, it’s part of the deal.”
“We paid for another night.”
“Who gives a shit about another night? I’m itching to get going, Gage. We can sit around when we get back to Boston. I’m hungering for the road.”
The valet came into the bar and handed Skeeter the keys. Skeeter bought him a drink and gave him a hundred dollar bill and bellowed, “Next stop, Joliet.”
“Joliet, like Joliet Jake in The Blues Brothers?” Gage asked.
“You got it, Gage, The Blues Brothers, John Belushi and that other guy. I can’t remember his name. Remember that song, Shama Lama Ding Dong? The toga party, when the girl’s bra fell off. Dean Wormer. The food fight. What a movie!”
“That was Animal House, not The Blues Brothers.”
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“Never mind.” Gage smiled.
“I’ll flag down penis face and we’ll be on our way.”
“Who?”
“The bartender, I have to pay the tab.”
27
In the morning I stood under a scalding shower for thirty minutes, turning the bathroom into a steam room. I dressed and went to the seventh floor, Skeeter and Gage’s floor, and found their room open and a maid stripping the beds. She told me they had checked out. I took the elevator to the lobby and asked the desk clerk, the retired cop I had tipped the night before, about Skeeter.
“He’s gone,” he said.
“I thought he had the room for another night.”
“He must have changed his mind.”
I went to the concierge and told him I wanted to rent a car, the fastest one available. He found a Ford Mustang for me, which the rental company delivered to the hotel. Before I drove off I approached the valet, handed him hundred, and said, “My friend checked out last night. He was driving a Corvette convertible. Know him?”
“Sure, Skeeter. I delivered it to him last night.”
“Delivered it where?”
“The Third Rail.” He must have seen the confusion on my face, because he said, “It’s a sports bar on West Madison. I took the car there after my shift.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“Joliet.” The valet blew his whistle for a taxi. “I gave Skeeter the keys, and he yelled out, Next stop, Joliet!”
“Thanks,” I said, handing him twenty more.
I got into the Mustang. “Next stop, Joliet,” I said to myself. I got directions on my cell and started driving, going through Cicero, Blue Island, and eventually reaching Joliet. I had no sooner got there when my phone rang. It was Kenny Bowen. I put him on speaker.
“Gruskowski paid a bill at the Joliet Route 66 Diner,” he said. “He paid it today, but I’m not sure what time.”
“I’m in Joliet on Route 52, going north.”
“Perfect,” Kenny said. “The diner is on West Clinton.”
The diner was housed in the Hotel Plaza on street level. The windows were decorated with Route 66 decals — red, white, and blue shields with black numerals. I went in and sat at the counter. A burly waitress with faded tattoos came over to me, reeking of cigarettes.
“What’ll it be?” she said with a gruff voice.
“Two men were in here earlier today.” I showed her Skeeter’s photo on my cellphone. “This is one of them.”
“Lots of people come in. I don’t pay much attention to them.” She barely glanced at the photo. “Today’s special is hash and eggs, any way you like ’em.”
“I’m investigating a murder. The man in the picture might be able to help me.”
“The other special is Belgian waffles with fruit and whipped cream.”
She wasn’t saying a word, Joliet’s version of the Charlestown code of silence. I told her I’d have scrambled eggs and coffee. She wrote it down and went to the kitchen. After I finished the meal, she came back and said, “Anything for dessert?”
“A slice of humble pie,” I said.
Her stone face broke into a smile. “The man in the photo was here with a younger man, a good-looking guy.” She put her pad on the counter so she could speak using her hands. “The older man couldn’t have murdered anybody, no way. Neither of them could have. They were fun guys, big
tippers, too. They’re traveling on Highway 66, the whole route, clear to L.A.”
“Did they say where they were going next?”
“Do you have wax in your ears? I just told you, Route 66.” She pointed to the street. “Why do you think they call this place the Route 66 Diner? Because we’re on Route 66.”
The helping of humble pie was growing larger and getting tougher to swallow. “Did they say anything else?”
“The older one, his name was Skeeter, he asked me if I’d like to join them. He said we could get married in Vegas.” She rolled her eyes. “They might’ve said something about St. Louis.”
I thanked her and went to the car and thought about my next move. I entered St. Louis into the GPS and continued west.
28
After they slept it off on the side of the road, they hit the pavement again. The red Corvette tooled along Route 66, ragtop down, cruise control engaged, motoring at a steady pace. Skeeter looked at Gage and said, “This is great, isn’t it? Chicago yesterday, St. Looey today. Too bad the Cardinals are still at Wrigley.”
“Getting clobbered by the Cubs,” Gage said. “And the Blues got kayoed, so there’s no hockey, either.”
“We’ll have plenty to do, all kinds of things. There’s the Gateway Arch, the Delmar Loop, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, the Ulysses S. Grant Historical Site.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“I’ve been dreaming of Route 66 my whole life. I used to watch Route 66 with my father, starring Martin Milner and George Maharis, two cool dudes, extremely cool dudes. They drove a Corvette, just like us. Believe it or not there was an episode in Charlestown. Milner and Maharis parked their Corvette in front of the Bunker Hill Monument, right there in Monument Square. Can you believe it?”
“I can’t believe they found parking there,” Gage said. “Is that why you bought the Corvette, to be like the guys on Route 66?”
“Why else would I buy it, to impress people?” Skeeter said. “We’re exactly like them, Gage. I’m Martin Milner, because I’m the leader, and you’re George Maharis, because you’re handsome and hip.”
“Handsome and hip?”
“That’s right, Gage, handsome and hip.” Skeeter sped up. “We’re hitting Ted Drewes for ice cream. We’ll be there lickety-split. Lickety-split for banana splits.”
Gage rolled his eyes. They drove up Chippewa Street to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, ordered chocolate cones, and sat at a picnic table next to a small brass band. Gage opened the newspaper and read the front page. “The flooding in Texas won’t let up. The Boston weather can be bad, but at least we don’t have to worry about flooding.”
“Unless my ex does a cannonball in the harbor.” Skeeter slumped in the bench. “I shouldn’t have said that. Gimme a minute. I need a second.”
“Is it your heart?”
“Not my heart, Gage, my honey. I miss her. I screwed everything up.”
They listened to the band play a couple of ragtime songs as they ate their chocolate ice cream cones. Skeeter sat still, not saying a word. When Gage finished his cone he said, “How come she left you?”
“She had her reasons,” Skeeter said, and then enumerated them. “I forged her name on a second mortgage, a perfect forgery but she figured it out. I lost the house betting the Patriots in the Super Bowl, fuckin’ Giants spoiling that perfect season. Then the car got repossessed, and the credit cards got canceled. Then the heavies came to our apartment, hired muscle from my bookie, scared the shit outta her.”
“What if you stopped gambling?”
“Stop gambling?” Skeeter laughed. “Does a leper change his spots?”
“I think the saying is ‘Does a leopard change its spots?’”
“Not if you went to parochial school in Charlestown.” Skeeter slowly rose. “Come on, let’s go. I’m feeling kind of blue today. The road’ll do me good.”
“Sure, Skeeter, let’s hit the road.”
They went to the car and continued up Chippewa Street.
I stayed on the highway for hours, driving through the small towns of Illinois, clicking them off like Domino tiles. In Springfield I stopped for coffee at a mom-and-pop place. The owner served me with a smile, until I asked him where the bathroom was located.
“We don’t have sanitary facilities,” the man said.
“Do you have any unsanitary ones, because I gotta go.”
He didn’t answer.
Outside, out back, beyond the parking lot and into the woods, I relieved myself on a sprawling oak. In Edwardsville I stopped for dinner, and after dinner I caught the end of an AA meeting in a veteran’s hall. The speaker, an old coot with a lisp, said, “You know you have a drinking problem when you go to a bar and your drink is waiting for you, and it’s not your regular bar.”
That night I stayed in a camp-like motel. I opened the windows and slept well in the cool country air. In the morning I called Cheyenne and talked for an hour. It seemed like ten seconds. I didn’t care that I was falling behind Skeeter and Gage while I was on the phone with her. I didn’t care about anything else when I was talking to her.
At the Mississippi River I stopped at the Chain of Rocks Bridge, now a pedestrian crossing, and walked to the bridge’s famed 22-degree kink in the middle. How did cars avoid crashes when it was open to traffic? I almost bumped into a jogger rounding it on foot, daydreaming about Cheyenne. Then I thought about Gert’s crushed skull, her marred face. What kind of a mindless animal slaughters an old lady like Gert? A mixture of love and vengeance swirled in my head and made me anxious. It also spurred me forward.
From the Chain of Rocks Bridge, I continued southwest and crossed the Mississippi into Missouri on Route 70 and drove to St. Louis. I stopped at a tourist spot called Ted Drewes for ice cream. I ordered a cone and sat at a picnic table and an idea came to me. I went back to the counter and showed Skeeter’s photo to the teenager who served me, handing him a twenty as an enticement.
“Have you seen this man?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, he ordered a chocolate ice-cream cone.”
“When did he leave?”
“Two hours ago, maybe three,” the boy said. “He was driving a candy-apple Corvette convertible. The car was mint.”
“Thanks.”
I drove on a southwest slant across Missouri, staying on Route 44, passing through Gray Summit, Devil’s Elbow, and Rescue. In Rescue, Kenny Bowen called and told me that Skeeter used his credit card at Gus’s Gas Station in Joplin.
“What will you do when you catch up to him?” Kenny asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“He could be a killer, Dermot.” A long pause ensued on the line. “I never thought I’d say this to you, but get a gun — strictly for self-defense.”
“I’ve gotten by this far in life without one.”
“Do it for me, please.” There was another long pause. “I hate to do this, but if you want me to keep helping you, you must get a gun.”
“You feel that strongly about it?”
“That’s the deal. I couldn’t live with myself if you got shot unarmed.”
“Where will I get one?”
“You’re in Missouri,” Kenny said. “You can probably get one in a coffee shop along with a large regular and a jelly donut.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll buy one.”
When I reached Gus’s Gas Station in Joplin, I found an older man sitting in a rocking chair whittling a block of pine. He wore a straw hat with a pack of Chesterfields tucked in the hatband. A scattering of crushed butts and wood slivers circled his feet. He looked at me, whittled, and waited. I showed him a picture of Skeeter.
“I’m looking for this man,” I said. “He gassed up here earlier.”
“Let me take a guess,” he said, whittling. “You work for an insurance company, and the man in the picture has money coming to him fr
om a deceased uncle.”
“What can you tell me about him?” I waited but he didn’t respond. “There could be a couple of bucks in it for you.”
“You city folk think everything’s for sale.” He blew the shavings off the block. “I sell artwork. My latest creations are in the office. See if there’s anything you like. You might want to buy one.”
I went into the office and looked at his collection. He had wood carvings of biplanes, tractors, covered wagons, and a beauty of the Gateway Arch, but the prices weren’t listed. I took the Gateway Arch out to the whittler and the negotiations began. I offered him a hundred dollars.
“A hundred dollars,” he said. “I spent hours carving it, and it’s precise to scale. I think it’s worth one fifty.”
“One fifty, huh?” I played along, turning the figure this way and that. “Okay, one fifty, but not a cent more.”
“Sold!”
After I paid him, he said, “The man in the photo gassed up here two hours ago, him and another guy. They said they were going to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s in Oklahoma City on Highway 66.”
I passed a sign that said Kansas State Line Five Miles, and when I crossed the border I stopped in the town of Galena. The Route goes through just a sliver of Kansas, thus Galena became Kansas’s designated stop on the southwest passage. I took a quick stroll around the town, just to do it, and got back on the road. Before I could say Dorothy and Toto, I was out of Kansas and into Oklahoma.
29
Skeeter and Gage came out of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City and got into the Corvette.
“That was pissa, pissa beyond pissa!” Skeeter said. “The murals of the Old West, with the horses and mesas and tumbleweed. The portrait of Clint Walker. That was awesome.”
“I liked the buffalo heads mounted on the walls,” Gage said with a smile. “You don’t see that in Southie.”
Murder in the Charlestown Bricks: A Dermot Sparhawk Crime Novel Page 10