Maybe. But his gut burned when he thought about it. The woman had given up the kid sixteen years ago. Carly thought she was dead. Should he even tell the kid he’d found her mother?
In his sordid past, he’d always felt that moral dilemmas were best faced after a few shots of Wild Turkey. This situation was going to be sticky for sure. Especially for a man not used to facing too many moral dilemmas head on. Not any more, at least.
Maybe he could stick this on Father Mike.
As he drove the Jeep through the crowded rush hour streets of Asbury Park, John considered stopping at Dank’s to waste some time, listen to the jukebox. Pool was definitely out. Besides, Dank’s was a hole. And the kid would be home from school by now. Instead, he pulled up in front of St. Boniface’s. A beat up old Chevy edged out of a space right in front and John maneuvered the Jeep against the curb.
Mike wasn’t in the rectory. Tuesday. What the hell did he do on Tuesdays at six o’clock? The lights were on in the church basement. Peering through the iron grates, John saw his old friend setting up chairs while several old men struggled with tables.
Bingo.
More accurately, bingo night at St. Boniface’s. Thousand dollar top prize. Early bird games began at six. John checked his watch. He had a few minutes.
Walking around the south side of the church, he stepped onto the sidewalk and found himself face to face with an animated female.
“John Preshin! What are you doing at church?”
He felt his forehead wrinkle as he looked at the woman, trying desperately to think of how and when he knew her and drawing a complete blank.
“Uh, hi.” Brilliant. Not a chance she might think he remembered who she was. His cheek warmed in warning.
The well-endowed brunette stepped closer until her breasts were mere inches away from his chest. She looked up at him, warm brown eyes heavily lined and shadowed and batted her eyelashes. The caked mascara flaked off leaving two dots on her right cheek.
“Did you get religion? Is that why you haven’t called me?” She pressed against him, her hand running down his chest, heading south. He grabbed for it and held it.
“I’m working. Investigating. Uh, you know that’s what I do.”
Her smile broadened, the ruby lips pulling away from a definite overbite. “Oh, I remember, Johnny. You investigated me real well.”
He fought the urge to gulp. “Uh, heh heh . . . right.”
One of her meticulously painted eyebrows arched up. Then the eyes slanted accusingly. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
He sought refuge in honesty. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t.”
With her free hand, she made contact with his right cheek, sending him reeling three steps backwards. “You pig!” she screeched. “You bullshitting lowlife pig!”
She stalked off, her thin high heels clicking against the old slate sidewalk. John could see the heat radiating from her anger as she swore into the evening air. Throngs of veteran bingo players trooped by, heading for the basement. John waited, hoping no one had actually heard her mouthing off. Had anyone seen her slap him, well, that story would spread quickly enough at the tables. He faced public opinion if he went into the basement.
He knew he’d be vilified by the old ladies and applauded by the old men, but there were more old gals than guys. He’d be toast if they saw his face.
So he waited.
Fifteen minutes later, he descended the stairs into the gaming catacombs of Rome.
Chapter 20
“B-17,” Father Mike’s voice rang out over the noise of serious bingo players placing small plastic chips on rows of cards. “B-17. Anybody?”
Mike looked out over his ancient flock. The “early bird bingo” had been his latest idea. Since most of the elderly couldn’t keep their eyes open much after eight in the evening, he figured he’d make the start time earlier so they could enjoy themselves and still make it home under their own steam.
Besides, he didn’t care to see them droop over their cards. It made him think too much about death.
As soon as he spotted Bourbon at the back of the hall, he knew something was wrong. This was the absolute last place he expected to see the man. He jerked back his head to signify that he’d spotted his buddy and motioned to one of his helpers to take over reading the numbers.
Raul the sexton, obviously proud to be asked to do the honors, cranked the handle of the ancient ball machine and called out, “Ene-diez y siete!”
One of the elderly ladies shouted back, “In English, Raul! In English! How many times . . . ?” and her words were cut off by the grumble and buzz of the other early birds. Mike smothered a laugh with a cough.
Eyes followed his path as he made his way to John through the crowded tables. He felt his collar tighten. When he reached Bourbon, he grabbed him by the arm and propelled him up the stairs and outside. It was so cold he tucked his bare hands across his chest and under his armpits. John, leather jacket open with only a t-shirt showing, seemed unaffected by the cold.
“What’s up?”
John scowled. “Bless me, Father.”
“Cut the crap. Something’s happened. Is it Carly?” Mike felt his stomach drop and his face start to heat.
John shook his head. “No. Yeah. Sort of.”
“Don’t yank me around, John. Out with it.”
John shuffled his feet. If this were the old days, Mike would have expected his friend to have a beer in his hand. “I found Carly’s mother. She’s alive.”
Mike’s heart skipped a few beats then thundered in his chest. He turned away but immediately came back and looked his friend in the eye. “Where? Are you sure? Did you talk to her?”
Shaking his head, John jingled the change in his pocket. “I talked with her friend, Tammy, who has her own sad story, Mikey, but she told me how to locate Bunny Adams. Seems our Bunny did rather well for herself. She’s married to Roland Evans.”
Mike’s hands moved automatically, splaying in front of his chest in recognition. “The Roland Evans, senator from Pennsylvania?”
John sent him a grim smirk. “The very one. The one everybody thinks is presidential material.”
“Are you sure she’s Carly’s mother?” He didn’t want to form any conclusions in his own mind without the truth.
John turned away, his hand going up to scrub at his face. “Well, it can’t be Tammy. The kid’s in a wheelchair and has been since the end of that summer. A real shame. She still has looks, but the chair . . . she was in an accident with guess who and guess who walked away unscathed?”
“No need. But are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. All the facts fit. But only a blood test would prove it completely.”
Mike shook his head. “You’d have to get her permission.”
John snorted. “Do you actually think she’d submit to a blood test? Would you?”
Mike felt anger surge through him. “Don’t ask me that. John, do not ask that of me. I . . . I can’t be Carly’s father.”
Again John turned away from the priest. “Yeah. I know. But I’m going to try to get to talk with her. And if she admits to being Carly’s mother, then what?”
Mike rubbed his face and walked in a circle. He felt his shoulders hunch forward with the weight of revelation.
“Don’t tell Carly. Not just yet. We have a duty to protect her. She’s more important that a senator’s wife. John, find out what you can, then we’ll figure out what’s best for Carly. We have to think of her first.”
John thought it over and with a brief nod, walked toward his Jeep.
“Yeah. We have to protect Carly.”
Mike watched him drive off, then plastered on a beatific smile and re-entered the church. He heard Raul calling out the numbers in Spanish and someone interpreting them for the others.
When the early birds saw him at the back of the room, they let out a collective sigh of relief.
Too bad he didn’t feel it himself.
“Bruce Springs
teen is going to be at Mary Immaculate of the Grotto’s prom.” After typing in the words, Carly waited for a response. Frankie just had to be online—he said he usually got on right before he slogged through his physics homework. She smiled as she remembered him writing her about the lab with the huge Slinky toys.
That boy had a gift for writing. He was cute, too, but something about him, something about the way he had taken to her like some kind of big brother, was weird. She knew the effect she could have on guys and she didn’t have it on him.
But he was great online. He knew most of her favorite online haunts. They liked the same bands and the same movies and that was cool, too. Although his face rivaled Brad Pitt’s and he had a great bod, Carly just couldn’t get over the big brother thing.
The computer screen shifted with an answer. “No way.”
She cracked her knuckles and punched in, “Would I lie? He’s been there before, rumor has it he used to date one of the teachers.”
“Cool. I went to the prom last year. Cost me a wad of money and the girl dumped me the next day because I had to see my father off and couldn’t take her to the shore.”
“What a skank!” she typed in and waited for something more.
“It was lame, anyway. The DJ liked to play stupid games and give out prizes. Like maybe his last gig was a Bar Mitzvah or kid party. My tuxedo looked good, though. Like James Bond.”
Oh, I bet, she thought. “Scan me a picture.”
“Later. Gotta go meet Choochie. He has my calculus homework because he borrowed my book third period.”
Carly pushed away from the desk. Time to do her own work. An hour later, she heard John’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. She cleared off his desk. They hadn’t really seen much of each other in the last three days or so. Not since he’d given her grief. She didn’t want to do anything to bring that up again. As the footsteps approached, her stomach clenched. He could be such a grouch!
He stepped into the office and tossed his jacket on the coat rack. His face looked sort of gray and his beard turned the lower half nearly blue. His dark hair never looked combed, but this little lock fell over his forehead, sort of like Superman’s. Same blue and black color. Weird, she decided.
“Hey,” she said, tentative about his mood.
His brows unknit and a small smile played about his lips. “Hey, kiddo.”
This was going nowhere.
“Did you eat anything?”
He flipped through his mail, dumping all but one envelope into the circular file. “Nah. I was kinda hoping there might be something downstairs. You eat yet?”
Carly shook her head. Liz and Flo had been so busy taking apart the soda fountain, they’d forgotten to invite her. “You don’t have any food up here. I don’t know if there’s anything to eat downstairs, either.”
John looked up, suddenly hearing her maybe. “What’s up with downstairs? There’s always food downstairs.”
“Liz and Flo started taking apart the front of the luncheonette.”
He paused. “Oh, where the fountain is? Are they really going through with that plan?”
Carly shrugged. “Looks like.”
He stashed the one envelope into the side drawer of the desk. “What say you and I go mooch some food under the pretense of scoping out the soda fountain?”
Carly made a show of considering the suggestion. “Hmm, there are always burgers in the freezer. I think Flo made some kind of onion soup yesterday, before they started in on the stuff they had to do with permits. I saw some of the destruction before, but they hadn’t finished wrecking things yet. We could go check things out and get invited.”
“That sounds like a plan,” he winked as he said it, making her feel included . . . part of something. She decided she liked it.
“Let’s mooch. There’s a fine art to mooching, you know. It’s usually all in the eyes and body language. Do you think you could act like a puppy? All cute and desperately hungry?”
“I watch Animal Planet. I think I can do puppy eyes.”
“Good,” he chuckled under his breath. “You just may be a natural.”
She couldn’t figure him out. He flashed hot and cold. Sometimes he was human, other times he was bearlike and crotchety. Sometimes he made her angry and sometimes he made her want to cry. It must just be because he was a man and she wasn’t used to them. She knew she had a lot to learn.
When they got downstairs, Liz ignored them. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she had her hair drawn up in some kind of topknot and strands of red corkscrewed around her face. Broken boards stacked by the front door as Flo pushed the broom across the floor tiles.
“Good evening, ladies,” John said, drawing out the words in a kind of silky, sexy way. Sometimes he looked like Ashton Kutcher only beefier, Carly decided. This was one of those times. How could Liz ignore somebody who looked like Ashton Kutcher?
Liz put her hand on her hip. “We’re closed.”
John’s head tilted as he eyed her. Carly watched, fascinated, as he plied his charm. He had his little subtle tricks, she’d seen him with Liz and Flo before, and knew he could usually get around Flo at least.
“Are we too late to help?”
Liz snorted. Flo held the broom with both hands near the top. “You’re just in time. If you take that stack of boards out to the Dumpster, I’ll feed both of you.”
Liz’s chin dropped to her chest. Carly heard her muttering under her breath but couldn’t make out the words. To take away some of the sting of their intrusion, she offered, “I could start heating up that big pot of soup, Flo, and you and Liz could go wash your hands while Mr. Preshin gets rid of those boards. By the time I get cheese grated and all that, everybody should be ready to eat a little.”
Starting toward the back, Flo passed by Carly and patted her on the arm. “You’re such a good girl. There’s toast for the top in the bread bin and grated cheese in the big fridge. I’m going to find that ‘closed’ sign and put it in the window before we eat. I don’t think I have the energy to cook, kiddo. You’re a lifesaver.”
With a wink and a smile, Flo left. Liz stood around for a few seconds, watched Carly head on back to the big kitchen and apparently gave up protesting because she followed her grandmother out of the luncheonette.
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them sat in the biggest booth, quietly slurping hot onion soup smothered in melted cheese.
“I knew this person,” John ventured between spoonfuls, “who grew up in Iowa or someplace like that. She came East one year on vacation and had onion soup for the very first time. When she got home, she tried to make it for her parents one night. They didn’t have any Gruyere cheese, so she substituted Velveeta.”
“That’s impossible,” Liz scoffed.
He waggled his brows at Carly then smiled at Liz. “Truth,” he proclaimed, his hand over his heart.
To Carly, it looked as if Liz was really pissed off. Her eyebrows met in the middle, her frown gave her a rather uncomplimentary look which, considering the weirdness of her hair, kinda looked cartoony.
“Nobody is that backward.”
To his credit, John did not snap back his answer. “Honest. If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. She used Velveeta on French onion soup.”
“Could have whipped up a batch of Lipton’s, you know,” Flo added. “It’s not that bad.”
Liz gurgled, causing John to laugh out loud.
“Not as good as this, Flo. You are a soup genius. The soup bar is going to be a big hit.”
Liz rolled her eyes as Flo preened.
There was something going on between Liz and John. Carly sensed it, but couldn’t tell what it was. They’d always been sort of at each other, but this time was way different. It looked as if Liz wasn’t comfortable having him sit at the table across from her. She kept shifting in her seat and avoided looking into his face when he spoke, even when he asked how things were going with the permits and all.
Mostly she kept quiet. Carly didn’t know too much about Liz, b
ut she’d heard from Flo about the dead baby and how Liz was having trouble getting over it. She imagined that if she had a baby and it died, she’d be hurt inside and very, very angry at God.
Mentally crossing herself, she gave up and finished her soup.
Liz sipped at the onion-filled liquid, wishing she could just finish it and get away from the table. John kept staring at her, making her feel self-conscious, making her heart beat faster and wish she’d at least put on decent jeans and a top that wasn’t baggy. No, that wasn’t right. She wished he’d just go upstairs and leave her alone.
Every time she glanced at him, he was looking directly at her. A smile, maybe a little smug, teased his lips. Soft lips, she remembered, then immediately dashed away the thought. Who cared about his lips?
It was that stupid dippy curl over his forehead that really made her crazy.
He blathered on, making Carly and her grandmother laugh over stories about strange things people he knew enjoyed eating. The guy in search of the perfect hot fudge sundae. The woman who drank raw eggs in beer in an attempt to increase her bust size. That was stupid. He said it worked, though. Surreptitiously, Liz cast a glance down at her own chest. John had mentioned the other night that there wasn’t a thing to complain about there.
She agreed.
Oh, God! What was she doing?
Pushing off the bench, Liz intended to go back into the kitchen and dig out some ice cream. Before she could step away from the table, John grabbed her hand and held it. A tiny electric sizzle blitzed through her arm.
“Liz, is there any of that pie you had a couple of days ago?”
He gave her a goofy grin—so childish—and kept a tight grip on her hand.
She’d like to smack that grin off his face, then kiss it to make it better.
Oh, Sweet Jesus in Heaven! Where did that come from?
Her face heating, Liz tried to reply but stuttered her answer. “N . . . no, it’s all g . . . gone, but there is ice cream.”
Flo stepped in, adding, “There’s fudge sauce in our kitchen. Carly, would you like some on ice cream?”
John and Carly nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah!” they said at the same time, with the exact same emphasis. Liz stared at them, noticing for the first time how their eyes were the same shade and they both possessed a small dimple at the corner of their mouths. Their lips were shaped differently, but that dimple, winking out like that, was kinda cute.
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