by Vicky Jones
“Sorry about that, Frank had some… um… business to talk through. You OK?” Lucy asked, returning to the bar. Her eyes studied Shona a little closer this time, taking in all of her features.
“Yeah. Everything OK with him?” Shona pointed over to Frank who was in deep conversation with Jimmy.
“Frank says he’s got some guy asking about you.”
“Huh? Who is it? Why they asking about me?” Shona replied, fidgeting in her seat and turning to look.
“Like are you… available?” Lucy had wanted to ask Shona this question for a long time now, but it still sounded awkward, no matter how delicately she tried to put it.
“Oh… I thought you meant they thought they knew me.” Shona ran her hand through her hair and over the back of her sweaty neck, completely oblivious to Lucy’s keen eyes.
“No,” Lucy laughed nervously. “Why? Are you worried?”
“’Course not,” Shona said. Draining her drink, she swept her hair out of her eyes again and got up off her stool. “Look, I gotta go, it’s way later that I thought I’d be out ‘til. That guy over there keeps staring too. Must think I work for Frank.”
Lucy ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “Would that be so bad? I mean, I’m sure you could use the extra money.”
The smile on Shona’s face vanished. “What do you mean?”
“Frank was saying… That you could make some serious money.” Plucking up the courage to finally say the words, Lucy swallowed hard. “With me.”
Little Tommy scampered out of the house wearing only his red and blue pajamas and slippers. Stopping at the edge of the road to look both ways, he shivered and wiped his dripping nose with the back of his hand. He hugged his little white teddy bear close, bowing his head to whisper in its fluffy ear.
“We gotta find my momma, Brumas.”
Shona stared at Lucy for what felt like an age. All the noise from the bar seemed to bleed away, muffled now inside her woolly head. She leaned in close, keeping her voice low. “I am not a whore,” she said, forcing the words through her clenched teeth.
Lucy felt the color rush to her cheeks. Her stomach twisted and the look on Shona’s face was one she prayed she’d never see again.
Heading towards the exit, Shona covered the distance so fast that Lucy struggled to keep pace with her.
“Wait… I shouldn’t have said that… Shona, wait!” she yelled, grabbing her arm as Shona swung the exit door open wide.
“It was a mistake coming tonight. I should've stayed in. Goddamn it, why don’t I listen to my gut?” Shona snapped.
Chuck appeared behind Lucy.
“Frank needs you in there. Now,” he growled. “Please,” he added, his tone politer this time.
Chapter 30
Only fifty yards from the bar and exhausted, Tommy sank to the ground in the middle of the road, his lungs burning. Seeing him stumble, Shona skidded to a halt, jumped out of the truck and raced over to him.
“Hey, lil’ buddy, this ain’t no place to be at this time. What you doing out here all alone?” she murmured, scooping up his fragile little body in her arms, his hand still clamped around the paw of his bear.
“I need to find my momma. She works in a bar. Can you help me?” Tommy asked between wheezes.
Carrying him over to the entrance to Chasers, Shona placed his feet on the ground. “What’s your momma’s name?”
“Mom.”
“’Course it is,” Shona smiled as she pushed open the door and led him inside.
“Momma?” a tiny voice rang out.
“Tommy? What in God’s name are you doing here?” Trish shrieked, rushing over to embrace him, hardly noticing Shona back away and leave. “You OK, sweetie?” She smoothed his dark hair down over his sweaty brow and checked him over as he coughed up the mucus that had settled on his chest. The merriment around them ground to a halt, with silence descending over every person in the bar. Confused looks were followed by small pockets of laughter as the drunker of the men in the bar pointed over at Trish and her pajama-wearing son.
“Grandma fell down. I heard a bang.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t wake up,” Tommy continued between coughs.
Trish scooped her four-year-old son up in her arms and ran out of the bar.
“Mom? Mom!” Trish yelled after racing through the open front door. Lowering Tommy to the ground, she rushed into the kitchen to see her mother face down on the floor.
“Oh my God, mom, what have you done?” she cried, noticing the empty bottle of vodka lying smashed in the sink with some of the contents still pooled underneath it. Reaching her mother’s side, Trish’s shoe crunched on a shard of glass. With her thumb and forefinger, she picked up the bottom half of the broken glass and put it to her nose.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion.
Carefully wrapping her lips around the smoother of the cracked edges, she tasted the last dregs of liquid remaining.
Water.
Looking along the length of the body below her, she saw her mother’s foot partly wedged underneath a loose piece of linoleum by the door. Slowly lifting her eyes, Trish felt her heart slice in two.
The telephone receiver was dangling down by its cord. On the wall next to it was the note she’d scribbled before leaving for work.
I’ll be home by 1 a.m. If I’m late, call me.
“Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I was late,” Trish wailed, draping herself over her mother’s lifeless body.
Chapter 31
“Whoo. You’re goddamn right it is. Full house!” Frank yelled, slamming his poker hand down on the table. Sweeping his hands across the table, he raked in the money and grinned at the groaning men he’d just beaten. “It’s been a pleasure, boys. Wanna try and win your money back?”
As they were nodding, Lucy burst through the door. “Frank, I need to talk to you. Now.”
“Later,” he replied, shuffling the cards.
“Please,” Lucy insisted.
Exhaling, Frank slammed the deck of cards down on the table and slid his chair out. Following her back out of the room, he grabbed her by the arm. “This better be important,” he snarled.
“Trish had to go home. Her kid showed up, something to do with her mother.”
“What? She just left?”
“Frank, did you win?” Lucy asked, ignoring his question when she noticed the lump of cash in his top pocket.
“Yeah. I told you I felt lucky tonight.”
Her eyes imploring him, Lucy pulled Frank towards her. “Please call it a night. Don’t gamble it away. That could see us OK. It’ll pay for everything, give everyone a bonus. Get this place fixed up good. Like you wanted it to be… for your daddy.”
Frank, his attention devoted to staring at the poker table through the crack in the door, heard only the last sentence. “Listen, you concentrate on what you do and leave me to do what I do,” he growled, casting her arm away from him.
“Hey, Smith! You in?” Max Whitfield called out from inside.
“Frank, please don’t do this,” Lucy begged.
“Call Trish. I want her back here workin’. Now.” He looked at her for a moment, then called back over his shoulder to the guys in the room.
“Deal me in.”
It was eight a.m. that Saturday morning when Frank, after only about three hours of sleep, wandered into the kitchen, his hand ruffling through his tousled black hair as he poured himself a coffee from the pot.
“How much did you make last night?” a voice asked.
Looking over at the table, he saw Lucy seated, sipping her coffee. “About two hundred,” he replied.
“How much did you lose?” Lucy murmured.
Frank paused. “I’ll make it back,” he affirmed, turning his back to her.
“How much, Frank?”
Slamming his mug down on the counter, Frank swung round to face her.
“Why you always stickin’ your nose into my business, huh? How much did
you make last night? Or were you too busy cozyin’ up to blondie? You think I didn’t see you?”
“I got a right to enjoy the fair as much as the next person, Frank. You don’t own me.”
“Yes I do!” he roared in her face. “You live in my house so you do what I tell you to do. Unless you want me to make a call to your parents?” Pulling his head back, the menace on his face was all too clear.
So was the look of dread in Lucy’s eyes.
“Didn’t think so. So, in the future, you keep that,” he jabbed his dirty fingernail at her nose, “out of my affairs, OK?” Ripping his leather jacket off the back of a dining chair with so much force it crashed to the ground, he stormed out of the back door to the apartment.
Chuck had been gazing up at the window when he looked across to the top of the metal staircase where Frank had just emerged.
“Hey boss, you got a minute?” he shouted, standing up sharply.
“No!” Frank yelled back, stomping down every one of the steps.
“Oh. Well, you see, I just wanted to ask… well, what’s gonna happen now. You know, after last night.” Chuck’s words, tentative though they were, were still irritating enough for Frank to stop in his tracks.
He spread his arms wide. “Why is everyone so goddamn interested in everythin’ I do around here?”
“Word is, you lost a lot of money at the table. I was wonderin’ what that meant for our plans,” Chuck continued.
“Our plans? Oh, you mean us being partners?” Frank smiled and slapped a grinning Chuck on the arm. “I can’t be partners with you now, buddy. You’re a liability. You think I wouldn’t find out about what you did to Barney? He came to see me yesterday, said you nearly snapped him in two.”
The grin melted from Chuck’s face like a stick of butter on a freshly roasted corn cob. “But you said we were gon’ run this town. You promised.” His voice quivered with a mixture of disappointment and thinly veiled rage.
“Oh, come on, Chuck. Don’t kid yourself. The only reason you hang around with me is because of the money, the status and the free beer. You really expect me to believe you wanna put the work in to make this place succeed?” He got up into Chuck’s reddening face, the point of his finger punctuating every word. “You’re a bum. You always have been. I’ve carried you all my life and I’m sick of it.”
“That’s not true!” Chuck yelled back.
“It is true. You’ve always wanted everythin’ I got, includin’ Lucy. You think I ain’t noticed how you stare at her all the time? You musta loved it when I got you to stand guard while she was fuckin’.”
A thin bead of sweat dripped down the bridge of Chuck’s nose as he fought to contain his fury.
“Like she’d ever look twice at an ugly bastard like you. You know what? That girl over there’s got more chance with Lucy than a basket case like you will ever have.” Frank pointed across the street to where three mechanics were waiting for Harry to open up.
Just then a blue truck pulled up and Chuck’s eyes landed on the one person he hated more than Frank right that second.
“Norm? Where the hell are the takings from last night?”
Ripping open the cash register, Frank lifted the levers and pulled out the tray, but there wasn’t a single bill left. All he found were piles of nickels and dimes.
Norm wandered out of the back room and leaned on his broom. “Sorry, boss, but you had it all last night.”
“Damn it…” Standing with his hands on his hips for a moment, the same idea he always had in this situation dawned on him.
“I’m gon’ ask the old man.”
“Frank, what you doing? Where you going?” Lucy shouted from the balcony above the bar.
“None of your damn business. God, why is everyone interferin’?” Frank raged, kicking over the nearest bar stool and storming over to the exit, almost dropping the bottle of beer he’d swiped from the bar on his way past.
“Wait!” Lucy shouted, racing down the stairs to catch up with him.
Outside, Frank stared over at Wreckers, his mouth clenched as he watched Shona and Harry chatting as they filled buckets with soapy water. Like a hunter stalking his prey, he walked over.
“I need more money,” Frank bellowed, gesturing to Harry with his beer bottle. Lucy caught up with him and gripped onto his other arm to drag him back. “Get off me, will ya,” he growled, shaking her off.
“I got nothing left, boy. You’ve had everything,” Harry said, thrusting both hands deep into the pockets of his overalls.
“Not good enough. Where’s the safe?” Frank swigged his beer, his eyes black as coal.
“Look, whatever mess you got yourself into this time, you need to sort it out yourself. I’m done.”
Looking up from her crouching position by the standpipe, Shona tried not to listen, but Harry and Frank’s raised voices made it impossible not to hear. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy trying to calm Frank down. A bit further to the right of them she spotted Trish walking over from the other side of the street, holding the tiny hand of the little boy she’d helped last night.
“Look, old man, you need to open that safe,” Frank warned, stepping closer to Harry.
“Frank, I need to talk to you,” Trish interrupted, walking straight up to him, her eyes bloodshot.
“Not now.”
“I need my money. I got nothing now,” she said, squeezing Tommy’s hand.
“You’ll get paid when I pay you, understand?” Frank replied, staring down with contempt at the little boy by her side.
“No, Frank. I need it now. I got responsibilities.” She paused to take her handkerchief out of her pocket. “My mother passed last night. I got nobody to help me now.”
Harry and Lucy looked in sympathy at Trish, who had now let go of Tommy’s hand to blow her nose on a tissue. The little boy stood by her side until something caught the corner of his eye.
“Look, Momma, a kitty cat,” Tommy grinned, watching as it walked out into the road.
Frank took another long swig from his beer and leered at her. “Well, maybe you shoulda asked your guy to use somethin’ before you opened your legs for him. You wouldn’t have been left with that lil’ runt then, would ya?” He threw out his arm towards Tommy.
Trish looked at him in horror.
“How can you accuse me of not being careful, Frank, with all the guys you throw at me night after night? I’d have been pregnant a hundred times over if that were the case. No. There has only ever been one person I’ve slept with who never used nothing.”
She looked into his eyes and stepped one pace closer.
“You.” She paused. “Five years ago.”
“What?” Frank breathed, looking down at Tommy as if he was registering the little boy’s thick black hair and his familiar-looking steel gray eyes for the very first time.
“He’s yours, Frank. Tommy’s your son,” Trish confirmed.
Marcie emerged from the office.
“What’s going on over there?” she shouted, her hand on her hip. “You better not be after any more money, Frank Smith. You’ve damn near cleaned us out.”
“Marcie…” Harry warned, shaking his head at her.
“What? No, Harry, I’m sick of you pussyfooting around that man. It’s high time he understood the sleepless nights we’ve been having with him rinsing our savings whenever he goddamn feels like it,” Marcie continued.
“Marcie, I really don’t think now is the time…” Shona chipped in after emerging from behind the standpipe. She motioned towards Frank and Trish, who were still staring wordlessly at each other.
“It’s exactly the time. Now, you listen to me. Harry’s been sick with worry—”
“Yeah? Well, maybe he should be more worried about his brother, my father, who’s still fightin’ to get home. Maybe he should think himself lucky he never had to go through what my father had to go through every goddamn day—”
“For God’s sake, Frank, Harry is your father!” Marcie yel
led.
Cocking his head to the side and staring at Marcie, then at Harry, Frank could barely take a breath, let alone voice his thoughts. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Harry nodded.
“It’s true. I’m sorry we never told you, but you were so hung up on your fa—” Harry paused. “My brother coming home one day that we—”
“We?” Frank at last croaked back.
“Your mother and I.” Harry lowered his head in shame once again. “We just didn’t have the heart to tell you the truth about him.”
“What truth? Come on, you may as well spit it all out now!” Frank roared.
“He wrote your mother three years ago. Said he ain’t never coming home.” Harry ran his shaking hands through his graying hair. “He made a new life for himself over in Korea after the war ended. He’s got a new family now.”
Frank’s legs crumbled beneath his trembling body. Staggering from side to side, trying to process what Harry was telling him, his emotions were visibly in tatters.
“But that can’t be… Why would she still send over the letters I’ve been writin’ him? Huh? Why would she make me go through that if she knew all of this?” Angry tears fought their way out of his blazing eyes. “Wait a minute. Is that why he ain’t comin’ home? Did he know I wasn’t his boy, huh? Did he know about you two screwin’ behind his back?”
“No, he did not, and you mind your mouth, boy.” Harry cast an embarrassed look over to Marcie, who flashed him a reassuring smile. “It was one time almost thirty years ago. That no good brother of mine made her so damn unhappy that she couldn’t help but look for some comfort elsewhere.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense. Why didn’t he tell me in his letters back to me?”
“For God’s sake, boy, you ain’t that dumb, surely. Ain’t you figured that one out yet?” Harry yelled at him. “It’s your mother who’s been forging those letters to you.”