The uniformed man prodded Willow with his .357 Magnum. “This flaming lunatic busted down the studio door and kicked the living shit outta everybody in sight! Let me blow his ass off!”
The woman’s voice was calm, low, throaty, soft. “No, let him go, Charlie. I’m sure his heart was in the right place.”
Charlie said, “Well, I don’t know where his heart was, but if I pull this trigger his balls are going to fucking Australia!”
An authoritative, steely edge surfaced in the woman’s voice. “That’ll be enough of the macho bullshit, Charlie! Put the gun away and go watch a cowboy movie!”
“You’re sure, ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m sure! I’ll talk to this fellow privately. Mr. Bucknell wouldn’t want unfavorable publicity for Seely Studios—you know that, Charlie!”
“Whatever you say, ma’am.” Reluctantly, Charlie holstered his artillery and Willow turned from the wall with a heartfelt sigh of relief. His benefactor was a tall, slim girl with short, honey-blonde hair, smoky blue eyes, a perfectly chiseled nose, and smiling, full red lips. She was properly assembled, everything exactly where everything should be. She wore a gauzy vanilla ice-cream dress with a narrow blue belt, and three-inch-heeled blue suede pumps. There was a slender blue ribbon in her hair, she was an utter knockout, and she reached for Willow’s arm with a perfectly manicured hand. There was a rose tattoo on the back of it—not a big garish red rose, a small pink rose, exquisite, reserved, petite. She said, “There’s a lounge next door—we’ll duck over there and have something cool while we discuss this matter, all right?”
Willow nodded wordless affirmation of her proposal.
On their way to Mickey’s Mirror Lounge she squeezed his arm. She said, “You have just fucked up our third rehearsal of a Hong Lee Karate School commercial.”
Willow said, “Sorry about that.”
Gladys Hornsby giggled. Willow wasn’t much on giggles, but hers was pleasantly lilting, a giggle that a man could live with. She said, “Oh, God, I hope the cameras were running! I just have to see that one from the beginning!”
7
Friday
In the seclusion of a back booth Gladys Hornsby cut it loose, doubling over with laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks. When she’d caught her breath she said, “You’re absolutely precious! Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west!”
Willow glared at her. “Laugh, bitch! When a hooligan grabs some poor old broad by the tonsils, what am I expected to do?”
She jerked a lace-trimmed baby blue handkerchief from her clutch-purse and dabbed at her eyes before sipping tentatively at her drink, a screwdriver garnished with a wilted half-slice of orange. She said, “Our same old booth—like the swallows coming back to Capistrano.”
Willow said, “Chirp, chirp.”
She placed her hands on Willow’s wrists and squeezed hard. “Jesus, Tutto, it’s wonderful seeing you again! Eight years, isn’t it?”
“Something like that.” It’d been seven years, eleven months, and three weeks. Willow knew. He’d kept track of the time.
She was shaking her head and her familiar pensive smile toyed with the corners of her mouth. “We had a three-ring circus, didn’t we?”
“Never a dull moment.”
“Was that really us—those maniacs?”
“Yeah, Glad, it was us—we just didn’t know any better.”
“And now we do.” She stared at the floor for several moments. She said, “Such a pity!”
Willow said, “Life goes on.”
Gladys said, “Oh, my God, he’s into fatalism or something!”
Willow said, “Night school.”
Her eyes had a misty, faraway look. “Remember the night we got drunk and we were doing it standing-up on the Belmont elevated platform and that old priest came up there and took one look and fell down the stairs?”
Willow grinned. “And we caught the next train before he could call the cops, only it turned out to be the wrong damned train.”
“And there was standing room only and your zipper was stuck and my skirt was all wet and we ended up out on Howard Street and…” Her voice trailed away.
“Rematch?”
“Tutto, I’d love it!” She looked at him, her smoky blue eyes melting. “I’ve missed you!”
“I’m in the book.”
“Yes, but after Carlos, I thought you’d turn me down.”
“Fuck Carlos.”
“I did.”
“I know.”
“But never on an elevated platform.”
“What ever happened to that greasy little bastard?”
“He turned out to be ambisextrous.”
“Shit!”
“That’s what I said. Tutto, you haven’t changed—a couple of pounds, perhaps—I recognized you instantly. What in the world ever brought you to Seely Studios?”
“You.”
“C’mon!”
“God’s gospel.”
Her face sobered. “Well, thank you, I think—but there’ve been changes. We might arrange an occasional romp, but—but—well, Tut, I’m sort of tied up these days.”
“Uh-huh. Casey Bucknell.”
“Who told you about Casey Bucknell?”
“I dropped in on your ex-agent today and fifty bucks worked wonders. He has a file on you, which he neglected to let me see, but it was an enlightening chat.”
“If you didn’t see the file, how do you know he has one?” Her eyes were bright with interest.
“It was on his desk when I came in—a green folder marked ‘Hornsby.’ He covered it with an ashtray.”
“Sammy Brumshaw, that slimy, fat fink! He’d sell his own mother’s ass, a dime a pound.”
“All I wanted was your location. Brumshaw did a bit better than that.”
“I’ll bet! What did he tell you?”
“Oh, he mentioned a kid named Joe Orlando and he talked about Casey Bucknell and Kathy Bucknell and your condominium and your red Mercedes and your jade necklace and he told me that you were slated to do next year’s Wow-wee Magazine Calendar. Things like that.”
She nodded, her face expressionless. “Tutto, I’m so glad you came—but why now, after all these years?”
“It’s your aunt, Glad—she’s terribly concerned about you. She hired me to find out where you’re living.”
“Well, damn you all to hell! This is business only?”
Willow shrugged. “Wasn’t that how it started—business only?”
Her frown faded and her laugh was silvery, tinkling through the shabby lounge. “Right! You came to the door, looking for a rubber-check artist, and I was still in my nightie, and one thing led to another, and, oh, Jesus, how you reamed me!” She made a delicious little hissing sound.
“I never did catch up with that bastard. You lived on North Cicero then. Where was Sister Rosetta in those days? You never mentioned her.”
“I’d barely heard of her then. She was still with the church—Michigan or Ohio—I don’t remember. When my father died she came in for the funeral and she never went back. I think she’d just been busted out of service, so to speak.”
“Boozing?”
“That, of course, but my mother told me that she’d bought a gun and threatened to blow a Bishop away. She lived with my mother on Wellington Avenue, and when Mom died I inherited Aunt Rosie. I had only one bedroom on Cicero so I took a two-bedroom flat on North Austin Boulevard. How much is she paying you to track me?”
“Four hundred.”
“Tut, I’ll give you five, right here, right now! Return her money and tell her that I’ve moved to Tuscaloosa.”
“You moved south, Glad, but not to Tuscaloosa—south to Lincoln Park West—Brumshaw says you’re on the top floor.”
“Uh-huh—courtesy of Casey Bucknell. Incidentally, you just missed meeting Casey.”
“He was the guy in the black Caddy limo?”
“Yes, and Sammy has it straight—I’m Casey’s guest—for want of a better
word.”
“There’s a better word?”
She grimaced. “I suppose so—‘slut’ would be more accurate. You’ve been around the block. Tut—I won’t have to draw diagrams, will I?”
“Damned few. You’re afraid that your aunt will get all likkered up and snaff a very cozy arrangement.”
“That’s it. Tut, this is no case for the SPCA. Aunt Rosie’s sitting pretty. I support her—rent, utilities, spending money, plenty of it—where do you think she got that four hundred dollars? If she finds me, she’ll do a number on me! She’s a brazen, foul-mouthed old bushel, barging in and out of gin mills, making a fool of herself! She’s developed some sort of fairy-godmother complex—she’ll protect me, she says. Protect me from what?”
“From you, maybe.”
“The blind leading the blind? Does she still have her gun?”
“I don’t know. Her handbag would accommodate one.”
“Five gets you twenty she’s carrying it! What’s worse, she’s goofy enough to use it!”
“On whom?”
“Who knows? It could be the first drunk who jostles her in a tavern.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“A dozen times. It’s a Heffernan-something-or-other.”
“Reese—Heffernan-Reese. Good piece. Accurate.”
“It shoots where it’s pointed?”
“Approximately.”
“Then she may kill the mayor of Decatur! She waves it around like it’s a ham sandwich.”
Willow felt a chill clamber up his spinal column, but he forced a weak smile. “There’s nothing wrong with a woman packing a gun nowadays—look at what damn-near happened to that old broad at the studios.”
Gladys scowled. “I fail to grasp the humor in the situation, Tut! I feel like I’ve got a time bomb jammed up my ass!”
Willow lit two cigarettes and handed one to her, a habit dating back more than eight years. She was tense and he’d never known her to be that way. He said, “Look, Glad, why all this razzle-dazzle? There’s another Casey Bucknell just up the road—some limp old duffer with a stiff bank account.”
Gladys leaned forward to fix Willow with a glittering blue-eyed stare. “Tut, for God’s sake, I’m in Casey Bucknell’s will for five hundred thousand dollars—five hundred thousand, do you hear that?”
“I hear it, but I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true, dammit!”
“So Bucknell tells you.”
“I was with him in his law firm’s offices when he put me in the will!”
“What law firm?”
“Greenberg, Feinberg, and Buchanan on Wells Street.”
“How long did it take to put you in?”
“Ten minutes.”
“They can pull you out in five. It happens every day—you could look it up.”
“No! Casey thinks I’m the greatest thing since the automatic transmission! I’ll collect if something doesn’t change his mind.”
“Sister Rosetta?”
“Good old Aunt Rosie!”
“Don’t cross your bridges before they’re hatched—Bucknell may outlive both of us.”
“Not a prayer! Casey has high blood pressure, a heart condition, diabetes, a screwed-up liver, and a perforated ulcer!”
“And you have to keep Sister Rosetta away from him until he keels over.”
“Precisely.”
“Tell me about her. If she’s been kicked out of her order, why doesn’t she shuck the nun’s garb and get into street clothes?”
“Because she believes that she’s still a nun! She claims that her order was wrong and that the Church was wrong. She says that she’s still Sister Rosetta in the eyes of God, still vested with whatever rights and powers nuns are vested with. She had a vision, she says!”
“In color, no doubt.”
“Color and three-D!”
“You might try an institution—when they start having visions, it’s about that time.”
Her laugh was brief and bitter. “Tut, I can support Aunt Rosie but I can’t afford an institution, even if she’d enter one willingly, which she wouldn’t.”
“Bucknell might help.”
“Oh, sure, I’ll just waltz up to Casey Bucknell and say, ‘Hey, Casey, my aunt’s a wacked-out alcoholic who thinks she’s a nun—why don’t you pay her way through Dry-Out College?’ Casey’s a cautious man and that’d scare him to death! Tut, Aunt Rosie’s an incorrigible and I have to keep her at a safe distance.”
“And that’s where I come in.”
“I hope so!”
Willow sat, nodding, thinking. Then he said, “You and Bucknell—do you cut it okay?”
“Great! The condo is his home away from home, and I’m good to him—I go along with his little quirks, no questions asked.”
Willow said, “Ah, yes, Bucknell’s little quirks—let me guess—something to do with voyeurism?”
“Uh-huh—I go to bed with his driver—Casey watches.”
“And?”
“Well, once he brought in a crowd and he had me mated with a Great Dane.”
She’d made the disclosure matter-of-factly, like she’d been talking about a cribbage tournament. Willow said, “Your place or his?”
“Mine, of course. That’s what condominiums are for.”
“I didn’t know that. Would you believe that some people just live in them?”
“That’s what mine’s for. It’s Casey’s pop-off valve.”
“And everybody pops but Casey.”
“No, Casey pops—but always last.”
Willow studied the label on his bottle of Kennessy’s Light Lager, making no comment.
Gladys said, “Do I shock you, Tutto?”
Willow said, “Probably.”
“Tut, please try to understand—I’m—well, I’m some sort of rejuvenating factor. Casey says that I’m restoring his youth.”
“A few more Great Danes and he’ll be back in knee-pants. Glad, to hell with Bucknell—what are you doing to you?”
“Nothing, Tut, nothing that hasn’t already been done. I’ve waded in Chicago’s cesspools—I’ve stood on my head in them!”
“Great Danes?”
“Just one of those, but there was an Irish wolfhound at the Jacob Bora Sausage Factory New Year’s Eve bash a few years ago.”
“How was he?”
“Better than old Jake Bora—considerably more finesse.”
Willow shrugged. “Well, business is business.”
Gladys nodded. Her face had become drawn, her speech clipped and terse. She wasn’t the go-to-hell little roustabout fashion model he’d banged around with eight years earlier—Gladys wasn’t gratis anymore, Gladys was selling. Willow studied her through the gray twining smoke of his cigarette, seeing old Sister Rosetta in her face, feeling pity, caring for the woman in spite of what she’d become. Thirty-year-old models weren’t in clamorous demand and Gladys Hornsby wasn’t getting any younger—she was rimming on a burnout, she had this one shot at the big brass ring, and she was betting the bundle on Casey Bucknell. Her hands were clenched, her rose tattoo swelling bright red like a boil about to burst. “Stick with me, Tutto! Don’t make waves and I’ll do right by you, I promise.”
“Just what do you want me to do?”
“It won’t be what you do, it’ll be what you don’t do! Don’t tell Aunt Rosie where I am! She’ll foul the works—God knows how, but she’ll get it done. She has a genius for that sort of thing.”
“All right, suppose I tell her that you’ve blown town—what if she doesn’t buy my story—what if she goes out and hires another gumshoe?”
“One problem at a time, please! I’ll worry about that when it happens.”
“Well, if she does, you can always derail him.”
“How?”
“Take him to bed.”
“There’s a thought.”
“Sure, and if she hires enough private detectives you can throw an orgy.”
“Whatever it takes.”
Her gaze was unwavering. She meant it. “You’re with me?”
“Yeah, Glad, I’m with you—I’d be the last to stand in the way of legitimate free enterprise.”
She took his hand and ran a forefinger back and forth across his palm. “Casey’s going to Germany early Monday morning. Seely’s opening three studios there—Berlin, Dresden and Munich—he’ll be gone a week, possibly longer, and you and I have some catching up to do!” Her smoky blue eyes were turbulent, boring holes in him. “Call me.”
“What’s your number?”
“Look in the book—Gladys Nebraska.”
“I don’t get the ‘Nebraska.’”
“Casey’s idea—he was born in Omaha.”
“I won’t run afoul of Joe Orlando, will I?”
She made a quick deprecatory motion. “Joe Orlando was a fling, nothing more.” She glanced down at the back of her right hand, smiling wryly. “Joe was the reason for this tattoo—we got to drinking and daring each other. Like my rose?”
“It’ll do.”
She winked at him, an exaggerated wink. “Oh, Tutto, you should see my orchid!”
“Monday, maybe.”
The tightness had left her and she was the devil-may-care Gladys Hornsby of old, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Monday? Why the hell wait till Monday? Where’s the bartender?”
Willow peeked over the top of the booth. “He’s talking to the waitress at the far end of the bar.”
“Anybody else around?”
“Not a soul.”
“Well, doggone, how wonderfully convenient!” She wriggled to her knees on the bench of the booth, her back to him. With a flourish she hoisted the skirt of her frothy white dress to its belt line. Willow had never known her to wear halfslips or panties. “Keep it simple!” she’d said, and Gladys Hornsby was still keeping it simple. She thrust her tight little posterior in Willow’s direction. She said, “Behold!”
It was tattooed on her right buttock—a purple orchid the size of a silver dollar, a work of art by any standards, and Willow said so.
Gladys turned to slide down into the booth. She wrinkled her nose at him. She was cute when she did that, and she knew it. “Glad you approve—it stung—I had to sit on one cheek for a week!” In a moment she was opening her clutchpurse and pushing money toward him. Willow stared at it—three one-hundred-dollar bills, four fifties. He tried to shove it back but she blocked him. “Hey, business is business, remember?” She left the booth, smoothing her skirt and looking down at him. She said, “Tutto, there’ve been more men between my legs than there are stars in the sky—”
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