Death Wore Gloves

by Ross H. Spencer

  “Glad, I believe that.”

  “Watch your naughty mouth and let me finish! You’re the only man I’ve ever been able to talk to.”

  “I believe that, too.” And he did, because he wanted to.

  She bent to kiss him, her tongue squirming into his mouth, hot, smooth, tasting of orange juice. “Things to do at the studio, Tutto, gotta gallop—bye-bye till Monday!” She left, her heels clicking primly across the cracked tiles of Mickey’s Mirror Lounge, and Willow sagged in the booth, feeling like he’d been broadsided by an aircraft carrier.

  It had been a scintillating conversation, as conversations between whores go, and Willow took his time with the last few sips of his Kennessy’s Light Lager, thinking about all those fictional private investigators, the rigidly uncompromising, death-before-dishonor guys out of New York and Los Angeles. Well, maybe they were that way in New York and Los Angeles, but this was Chicago, Illinois, and in Chicago, Illinois, there are times when a private investigator can be had for five hundred dollars and the promise of a roll in the hay with a washed-up fashion model who has quite literally gone to the dogs—Great Danes and Irish wolfhounds, to be specific. Willow’s smile was sour. In a bind he’d have managed to squeak by without the five hundred dollars.

  8

  Saturday

  Old Mother Earth had completed the better part of a spin, Florence Gambrello had come, conquered, and departed, and Tuthill Willow was seventeen thousand years older. Early on that October Saturday afternoon he hunched cross-legged on his bed, thoroughly pussy-whipped, flicking ashes from his bent cigarette into a topless Kennessy’s Light Lager can, whistling tunelessly between his teeth, considering those events of the night recently flown.

  According to Willow’s thirty-five-dollar Timex wristwatch, The Great River Grove Autumn Sex Marathon had begun at 11:02 p.m. Central Daylight Savings Time, and it had raged unchecked for more than three hours. Going to bed with Florence Gambrello on the night of October 12 had been exactly the same as going to bed with Florence Gambrello on the night of October 5, only more so—closely akin to tangling with a great white shark over a coral reef at the peak of a typhoon. At approximately 2:15 in the morning a scant measure of sanity had returned to Florence’s sex-blurred eyes, and she’d peered at Willow as though he’d just come into the room. She said, “Jeez, Tut, you look a little wrinkled around the edges.”

  Willow said, “It’s probably nothing that a few weeks in the country wouldn’t fix.”

  She touched his knee ever so gently. “Looky, Tutto, I don’t want you should ever get the idea that Florence is trying to destroy you with sex.”

  Willow said, “Uhh-h-h, yes, well, you see, it isn’t so much the sex as it is all this falling out of bed. I feel like one of the fucking Wallendas.”

  “That’s ‘Flying Wallendas.’”

  “Whatever.”

  “Which Hying Wallenda?”

  “The one who missed the net.”

  Florence leaned back to stretch luxuriously, her magnificent dark-nippled bosom swelling like a South Pacific tidal wave. She said, “Florence is of the opinion that sex should be a joyously uninhibited experience.”

  Willow shrugged—a mediocre shrug, hardly up to his standards.

  Florence said, “What about you?”

  Willow said, “Helluva question—what about me?”

  “You agree with Florence, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, and then again, no. I suppose a great deal would depend on just how joyously uninhibited the sexual experience is permitted to become. Centrifugal force must be taken into consideration, you understand.”

  Florence’s big liquid-brown eyes grew dreamy. She said, “It seems that I become more joyously uninhibited every time we go to bed—have you noticed that, or is it merely Florence’s imagination?”

  “Offhand, I’d say that it ain’t merely Florence’s imagination.”

  “It’s progressive, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Yes, sort of like eternity—I mean, just where does the sonofabitch end?”

  Florence sighed rapturously. “We are buffeted by booming billows of boundless desire, buoyed by unfettered passion, borne aloft on timeless wings of ecstasy.” When Willow’s mouth dropped open she said, “That’s from The Mistress of Misty Manor by Carolyn Flubb. It’s what Susan Heathrow says when she gets raped the tenth time by Major Twillingham.”

  “How many times does Major Twillingham rape Susan Heathrow?”

  “Thirty-one, I think. Always out on Netherby Moor. Oh, wow!”

  “I ain’t all that familiar with great literature.”

  Florence said, “Well, anyway, it sure don’t hurt none to know that we’re gonna pop our nuts at the same time!” She searched Willow’s face, her eyes probing his silence. “You know about these things?”

  Willow said, “Yeah, my groin is murdering me.”

  Florence said, “Hey, if your balls don’t ache, it must of been a waste of effort!”

  When Willow had failed to respond, she’d snuggled up to him. It wasn’t all sex with Florence Gambrello. The big, tough North-and-Halsted woman wanted desperately to be needed, to care and be cared for, and this frightened the Hail Columbia out of Willow. He sensed in her a broad streak of sincerity, and Willow was unaccustomed to encountering sincerity in women—he’d never looked for it, he’d never regarded it as being essential, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it.

  He groped his way back to the here and now, putting out his cigarette and groaning laboriously to his feet. He straightened the bed and glanced around the room, shuddering. It looked like Mongolian barbarians had spent a fortnight. He made a halfhearted attempt to restore some semblance of order, finding a tattered remnant of Florence Gambrello’s black brassiere dangling from the chandelier. She’d consistently refused to divulge her bust size, but there it was on a little white tab—just as he’d suspected—48-D. Florence was a battleship in a harbor swarming with rowboats.

  He took a lukewarm shower, brushed his teeth, and noted that three had been knocked loose. He didn’t shave for fear of what he might learn during the process. He checked his refrigerator, finding one rock-hard English muffin and no butter. He drove north on River Road to Oscar’s Diner, where Hank Bailey was working the counter. Hank Bailey was the regular day-man and part owner of Oscar’s, a lanky, shuffling, bald-headed guy with large saucerlike eyes. He’d always reminded Willow of the racing dog that’d finally caught the phony rabbit—he had that disappointed look. Willow ordered a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. Hank Bailey said, “How many eggs in the milkshake?”

  Willow said, “None—not in a chocolate milkshake—only in a vanilla milkshake.”

  Hank Bailey gave him a round-eyed reproachful stare. “Why is that?”

  “I dunno—eggs with chocolate just don’t seem right.”

  Hank Bailey frowned. “Aw, that’s all in your head, Tut!”

  “Maybe so, but no eggs.”

  “Just as well—eggs never work anyway.”

  “I know it.”

  Hank Bailey said, “What works is fish! Fish works real good!”

  “That’s what your night guy was telling me, only he didn’t say what kind of fish.”

  “That’s Ronnie—red snapper, Ronnie says. You better listen to Ronnie, Tut.”

  “Ronnie’s an authority?”

  “Well, I didn’t think he was, but he is! Yesterday was Ronnie’s day off, so he went over to Harry Palokous’ place for red snapper. You like red snapper?”

  “Not well enough to eat it.”

  “You know Harry Palokous’ place?”

  “Yeah—Athens Café—Belmont and Cumberland. What about Ronnie?”

  “He had an order of red snapper and then he went into the kitchen and raped the cook.”

  “So now Ronnie’s in jail.”

  “No, so now Ronnie’s night manager at the Athens Café. Helluva good job, night manager at the Athens Café!”

  “Well, she mu
st have liked it.”

  “Who?”

  “The cook.”

  “Harry Palokous does the cooking.”

  Willow nodded thoughtfully. He said, “I see.” He really didn’t.

  Hank Bailey said, “Well, to each his own—that’s what I always say.”

  Willow said, “Me, too—‘Well, to each his own.’”

  Hank Bailey said, “You want onion on that cheeseburger?”

  Willow said, “Yeah—raw.”

  Hank Bailey said, “That’s the way we been getting them lately—raw as hell.”

  Willow ate in silence and drove home to sprawl on his couch and watch a college football game. When he dozed off the team in the red jerseys was beating the team in the white jerseys 13–0. When he woke up the team in the red jerseys was beating the team in the white jerseys 33–0. He turned off the television set, undressed, and went to bed. He’d wanted to get drunk but he hadn’t felt up to it.

  9

  Sunday

  It was a cloudless, blue October morning, the kind that makes a man glad to be among the living, and Willow rolled out of bed to greet it, fully recovered and at the top of his game. He left the apartment building at 11:45 sharp, an autumn Sunday habit of long standing. Raponi’s Old Naples Spaghetti House opened at noon on Sundays and the National Football league telecasts began at that time. There was a sweet, nostalgic smell in the air and Willow recognized it instantly—the smoke of burning leaves, a magic gray carpet back to youth. There were ordinances against the burning of leaves now, but every so often some hardy soul would defy them and Willow applauded this anarchy.

  Martha Strotman was in the front yard, pruning a bush, a forsythia or something that had bloomed brilliant yellow back in April or May, and Martha looked up to nod to him, smiling pleasantly. To the best of Willow’s knowledge it was the first time Martha Strotman had smiled at anyone, also the first time she’d neglected to come up with a searing remark regarding the Friday-night ruckuses in Willow’s bedroom. More than that, Martha was wearing a brand new pair of tight blue jeans, and she’d added cautious touches of rouge and lipstick. Willow got into his Buick, frowning puzzledly. Maybe Martha had found a beau. That’d be nice. They could sit in Martha’s parlor and drink apple cider and play “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” on the Victrola. Willow grinned—shades of ancient Rome—debauchery out of control.

  Even at high noon, Raponi’s Old Naples Spaghetti House was a dim place. Nick Raponi had a theory that Stygian darkness was romantic, and considering the numbers of used condoms found in his back booths, he may have been right. Florence Gambrello sat at her table, watching the entrance the way a cougar watches a gopher hole, rotating the short stem of a red rose between thumb and forefinger. She shoved the rose at Willow. “Here—put this in your buttonhole.”

  Willow accepted the rose, winced, and said, “Ouch!”

  Florence said, “Thorn?”

  Willow said, “Damn right!” He drooped the rose onto Florence’s table and pressed his pierced thumb into his handkerchief.

  Florence stood quickly, retrieving the rose and deftly puncturing her own thumb with its thorn. She grabbed Willow’s hand, placed her bleeding thumb against his, clasped both thumbs with her free hand, and squeezed like a seven-hundred-dollar vise. This accomplished, Florence installed the rose in Willow’s lapel buttonhole, kissed his cheek, and murmured, “Mmm-m-m-m, sempre!” She leaned against the edge of her table, sucking her wounded thumb, appraising his reaction with hot and calculating brown eyes. Willow managed to maintain a poker face despite a powerful urge to flee the premises and light out in the general direction of the Solomon Islands. The connotations of the bloody rite had been bone-chillingly obvious—Florence Gambrello was madly in love and she was closing in with the instincts of the experienced hunter. Willow felt like a rabbit with a hungry timber wolf snapping at its ass.

  At the bar, Nick Raponi was saying, “Old Sister Rosetta came in last night. She gargled half-a-dozen vodka martinis, she fell off a barstool, she threatened to sue me, and she said she’d be back today.”

  Willow said, “Well, that’ll be something to look forward to, I’m sure.”

  Raponi glanced at the doorway, cold apprehension sweeping over his features. He crossed himself. He said, “Oh, Jesus Christ, here she comes!” Here she came, indeed—colliding with Florence Gambrello’s table, bouncing off, advancing unsteadily, spotting Willow, and motioning him toward the rear of the place. Several years earlier Willow had known an army topkick who’d gestured almost as emphatically, usually just before he dished out weekend extra duty. Willow fell in obediently behind her and followed until she collapsed into a booth. She glared at him. She said, “Awright, Missur Willur, where the hell my niece?”

  Willow shook his head. “Sister Rosetta, I won’t pull any punches. It took me less than three hours to determine that Gladys Hornsby is no longer in Chicago.”

  The old woman’s jaw sagged. “Then where it is she being?”

  Willow shrugged. “Well, seeing as how she’s a fashion model, New York would be a good guess, but I wouldn’t bet a dime on it.” He dropped her four hundred dollars at her elbow. “I’d be swindling you if I took a dime of your money.”

  “You off case?”

  “Yes, Sister Rosetta, I’m local talent, and if there’s no way to get there, I don’t go.”

  She gazed at him uncomprehendingly and Willow caught another faint trace of Gladys Hornsby, this time in her vacuous stare—Gladys smackdab in the middle of a sexual climax, oblivious to everything but the sensations of the moment. Sister Rosetta said, “So what am do now?”

  “Just sit tight—that’s all you can do—she’ll surface eventually. Tracking her beyond Chicago could run into important money.”

  Sister Rosetta mumbled several very un-nunlike words. She lurched to her feet, sweeping the money into her big black handbag, and Willow glimpsed the pebbled walnut grips of a pistol protruding from between a wad of tissue and a white plastic container of pancake makeup. She tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Missur Willur, you know what?”

  “No, Sister Rosetta—what?”

  “You sure lousy detekuv!”

  Willow spread his hands. “Sorry.”

  She left the same way she’d arrived, careening out of the place like a crippled cassowary, and Willow was sad for her, as sad as any Chicagoan can be for another human being. Which isn’t very.

  The Chicago Bears had just rung the bell against Green Bay, and Willow took a seat at the bar, dusting his hands and smiling a secret little smile. He said, “That didn’t take long, did it?”

  Raponi said, “Just seven plays from scrimmage.”

  Willow said, “I’m talking about my session with Sister Rosetta.”

  Raponi said, “She looked pissed. You must of squirmed out of it.”

  Willow said, “Yeah, I squirmed out of it.” And, in his comparative innocence, he actually believed that he had.

  10

  Sunday

  The Chicago Bears, adhering to a tradition of twenty-five years, had blown a 14-point halftime advantage, losing to Green Bay 31–27. In the afternoon’s second televised game, Seattle had stomped San Diego 42–21. Willow had lost twenty-five dollars on the Bears, thirty-five on the Chargers. It was shortly after six o’clock and he sat at the bar, sucking up Kennessy’s Light Lagers, listening to Nick Raponi prattle on and on about Dom Palumbo, his make-believe Mafia buddy, and doing his damndest to ignore the smiles, winks, waves, and highly suggestive if not downright obscene gestures from Florence Gambrello’s table near the entrance. Willow was football-weary and he wanted to go home, but he’d have to devise a way to get past Florence Gambrello because it was obvious that visions of sugar plums danced in her head, and there’d be no telling just what sort of flat-out proposition she might lay on him if she collared him. A couple of Kennessy’s Light Lagers later two elderly ladies came in to head for the dining area, and while Florence was getting them seated, Will
ow picked up his change and went out the door.

  The early evening was balmy gray and neighborhood lights were winking on like fireflies. In the parking lot Willow fumbled for his keys and watched a tall, lean, mustached young fellow clamber out of a sparkling new white Corvette. He waved to Willow and approached, adjusting the jacket of a three-hundred-dollar fawn leisure suit, running artistic, multi-ringed fingers over a sleek Prince Valiant hairdo. He smiled toothily and said, “Hi, there. I’m Joe Orlando.” His voice was thin and reedy. The boys were getting taller every day, but their voices were going up in pitch, and Willow wondered about that. Beauty parlors, probably—beauty parlors and necklaces. Joe Orlando wore a necklace—a string of miniature golden razor blades. Willow said, “Hello, Joe.”

  Joe Orlando said, “You’re Mr. Willow?”

  Willow said, “For whatever that’s worth.”

  Joe Orlando nodded. He said, “Well, I will show you what that’s worth.” He kneed Willow viciously in the sugar plums and Willow doubled up. Joe Orlando said, “You stay the hell away from Gladys Hornsby, you hear me?”

  Willow responded with a groan, and Joe Orlando karate-chopped him in the back of his neck, driving him to his knees. Joe Orlando said, “You ain’t talking too well! Speak up, you prick!” He busted Willow alongside the head, and Willow toppled to sprawl on the parking-lot blacktop. Joe Orlando said, “That was openers! Now I’m gonna kick your fucking teeth out!”

  Through pain-fogged eyes Willow saw Florence Gambrello coming on the dead run. For so large a woman she moved with amazing speed. He heard Florence Gambrello snarl, “Hey, Stupido!” He saw Joe Orlando wheel around. He saw Florence Gambrello feint with a left. He saw Joe Orlando flinch. He saw Florence Gambrello nail Joe Orlando squarely between the eyes with a long overhand right. He saw Joe Orlando reel northward on rubber legs, ricocheting off two parked automobiles before ramming his Prince Valiant hairdo through the windshield of a third. He watched Joe Orlando ooze silently to the ground, like a man in a motion-picture dream sequence.