Round Robin

by Joseph Flynn

  I am grievously sorry.

  What you did ... what happened to you ... I’m not so sure how to describe it these days ... is something that still rends my heart. To that sorrow, I must add the shame that I have only recently realized how your pain must have been infinitely greater than mine.

  I have always tried to do what I was taught was right, and even now I’m bewildered how I could have gone so far wrong. Perhaps your father can help me to understand. I know I’ve hurt him deeply, too, but for some reason, and I can only think it is the grace of a very generous God, he has seen fit to forgive me.

  I can’t expect you to do the same, certainly not now, but if you could accept this message as my attempt to remove just one of the stones in the wall I’ve built between us, I’d be happier than I could tell you.

  I truly love you.

  Mom

  Chapter 25

  “You’re on the air.”

  “Yeah, Iggy, I love your show, man.”

  “You got something to say, dummy, say it.”

  “Hey, fu—”

  Click.

  “We’re not doing four-letter words now. That’s next hour. Next caller ... you’re on the air.”

  “This Robin broad, Iggy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’d have to get a makeover before she could go out with Oscar Mayer.”

  “Not bad. Next caller.”

  “I saw this Robin what’s-her-name in the park once. Couldn’t believe the way she could catch a Frisbee in her teeth.”

  “Woof. Next caller.”

  “She can’t go swimming during whaling season.”

  “Lame. Next caller.”

  “Hey, this broad ain’t all bad. You go out with her, she’ll probably let you borrow her mustache cup.”

  “Or her jock. Next caller...”

  “ ... Last guy she took to bed said the Grand Canyon was a tighter fit.”

  “Oooh, nasty. But I like it. Next caller”

  “That’s filthy,” Mimi said.

  The radio in the deli’s kitchen was tuned to the dishwashers’ delight, the Iggy Gross Show. She reached up to turn it off. Robin stopped her.

  “ ... She couldn’t find a date in a holding cell.”

  “Next caller.”

  “My girlfriend looked like her, I’d volunteer for a lethal injection.”

  “Next call... ”

  “I’m not listening to anymore of this,” Mimi said. “This is hateful.”

  She stormed off toward her office, then turned back to point a finger at her staff.

  “That is not what we do around here. We always give a person the chance to hit back.”

  Undeniably true, Robin thought, but a fine distinction nevertheless.

  Still, she’d had about enough of Iggy Gross. She was about to join Mimi in her office for the last ten minutes before the deli opened when Tone Morello came on the air.

  “So what do you think, Tone?” Iggy asked. “You’re the guy we’re trying to help out here. Any of these callers nail your fat friend Robin Phinney?”

  Tone was tanned, rested and sated after a very merry Caribbean holiday. He never found his Dutch girl, but over on the French side of the island he met a lissome Canadienne who was everything he’d hoped for, and more. She wanted an encore for next Christmas when her stuffy banker husband and his boring friends would once again be off hunting moose. La jolie blonde said she preferred fur trappers.

  So Tone was feeling pretty good.

  Especially since when he got home there was an offer of a TV job to start next month. Tone’s attorney was working out the details right now.

  All in all, Tone felt free to ad-lib his response to Iggy’s question.

  “Well, what I was thinking, Iggy, it’s easy to call a radio show and say anything you like. It’s like fighting Mike Tyson from the cheap seats: You can throw all the imaginary punches you want. But it takes a little more iron in your diet to actually climb into the ring.”

  Iggy looked at Tone. He was pissed that Tone wasn’t following the script, but he played it cool.

  “So, what’re you saying here, Tone?”

  “I think your callers are fly-weights. They wouldn’t last thirty seconds with Robin.”

  “You’re insulting our listeners?”

  Iggy was steaming now. Insulting the audience was strictly his prerogative.

  “Just following ol’ Howard Cosell’s advice, and tellin’ it like I see it.”

  “Well, maybe they see you as something that fell outta a chicken’s rectum, too.”

  “Couldn’t blame ‘em if they did,” Tone said. “That’s the impression we’ve been working on here the past month or so ... and I will admit it, Robin Phinney cleaned my clock.”

  In the kitchen at Screaming Mimi’s, everyone looked at Robin and grinned.

  She grinned, too. That dummy Ant-knee had actually learned something from her. He was baiting Iggy, and she could practically see that idiot shock-jock putting his foot in the snare.

  “Tone, Tone, Tone, grab some testosterone,” Iggy said with mock sadness. “I thought we were making some progress here.”

  “Oh, we are, Iggy.”

  “Yeah, how’s that? You sound like you’re content to eat this broad’s doo-doo with a spoon.”

  “Just realizing my limits.”

  “So where’s the progress?”

  “Well, you know how you were planning to let some of these numbnuts you got calling in go over to Mimi’s and go up against Robin for a few weeks?”

  Iggy almost burst a blood vessel. He hadn’t yet revealed the scheme to his audience. Now, Tone was giving away the whole plan.

  “Hey!” Iggy yelled. But Tone kept right on going.

  “Look, Iggy, trust me. None of these guys would stand a chance. It would be such a wipeout it’d be boring. You’d lose ratings.”

  At that point, a small vein in Iggy’s right eye did rupture.

  “Now,” Tone said, “you’ve already told everyone a million times how Robin cut my nuts off, so there’s no point in my looking for a rematch. No, Iggy, there’s really only one way to handle this. There’s only one man in town — maybe in the world — who can keep this woman from emasculating us all ... and that’s you!”

  Iggy lacked a tail, otherwise his resemblance to a trapped rat was dead on.

  “Come on, Iggy, whaddya say?” Tone asked. Then he added, “You blockheads out there, you want to see your man Iggy take on big, bad Round Robin Phinney?”

  Within seconds the switchboard lit up like a Chinese New Year. At that point, it didn’t matter what Iggy wanted. His public had him by the short hairs.

  Iggy’s producer decided it was a good time to go to commercials.

  Tone grinned at Iggy.

  “You prick, you’re fired,” the shock-jock said.

  Tone shook his head.

  “Too late. I handed in my resignation before we went on the air.”

  He took off his headset and started for the studio door, but when he got there he stopped and looked back at Iggy.

  “Better get in training. You’re gonna be fighting way outta your weight class.”

  Robin realized that rat Ant-knee had snared her, too. Maybe changed her life.

  Apparently everyone in town had heard what had transpired on the Iggy Gross Show that morning. As a result, nobody who came into Screaming Mimi’s insulted her anymore; they cheered her on, they wished her well. They told her to wipe the floor with Iggy Gross.

  Robin had become the home team and her fans were pulling for her to win the championship.

  Iggy, of course, was not without his partisans. More than a few teenage boys ran past Mimi’s giving everyone inside the finger and raucous jeers. One cretin even stopped on the sidewalk outside the deli and exposed himself, pressing his member against Mimi’s window, making her exclaim that she’d just had that window washed. The idiot was trying to zip back up when Stan Prozanski cuffed him and threw him in the back of a paddy
wagon that soon arrived.

  The media appeared by lunchtime. Mimi promptly laid down the law. One video camera for pool coverage only, and everybody who came in had to order something.

  Undeterred by these conditions, the press asked Robin if she thought she could handle Iggy Gross. Had she ever confronted a celebrity before? Where would the match take place, Mimi’s or Iggy’s studio? And did she really hate men?

  Robin said that she hadn’t started the whole mess; Ant-knee Morello was the instigator. They all knew what she’d done to him, and they could decide for themselves if he was a celebrity. The only place she worked and traded barbs with people was Mimi’s; and with one exception — not Iggy Gross — she didn’t hate anyone.

  A reporter asked who the exception was.

  Robin told the guy, “Come here, and I’ll whisper it in your ear. Of course, after I do, I’ll have to slice your ear off.”

  As Robin held her carving knife and serving fork in her hands, the reporter declined amidst a round of nervous laughter. The question was not repeated.

  But the newsies still wanted to know if she thought she could handle Iggy.

  For just a second, Robin thought she should end all this lunacy by simply saying no. Iggy was too much for her. That would let all the air out of the balloon. Of course, it would effectively end her job, as she knew it, at the deli, too. You couldn’t be a wimp and hold court at Mimi’s. The thing was, after all this time, she thought that might not be such a bad idea, either.

  There had to be more to life than what she’d been doing with hers.

  She almost came out and said it: No, she didn’t think could take Iggy. But right then one of the shock-jock’s twisted little acolytes appeared outside the deli. He looked like he couldn’t be any older than David Solomonovich, but from the insipid leer on his face it was plain that he didn’t have the intelligence of David’s toenail clippings. The kid was holding a large piece of cardboard that seemed to be hinged on one side with a strip of duct tape. He opened the cardboard like it was a centerfold, and inside was a crude drawing of a naked woman with her legs spread. The figure’s genitals had been replaced by a photo of the Grand Canyon.

  Guess who.

  The kid had the nerve to rap on the window to attract everyone’s attention. Once he got his moment of glory, he laughed, folded his show and took off running.

  Okay, Robin thought, maybe she’d have to reconsider. Somebody who motivated such contempt for women did not deserve to prosper or maybe even draw breath.

  When the media returned their focus to her, Robin looked right into the videocam.

  “Can I handle Iggy Gross? Yeah. Like Hank Aaron handled a hanging curve.”

  Slugger Phinney Says She’ll Hammer Iggy Out of the Park.

  Dan Phinney showed her the headline that appeared in the early edition of the next day’s paper when he picked up Robin after work . The story made the front page below the fold, along with a picture of Robin to which a baseball bat had been added.

  “A friend of mine at the Trib gave me this,” Dan said with glee. “It won’t even hit the streets for another hour or so.”

  Robin looked at her father, as he sat behind the wheel of his Camaro, taking her home. He was as excited as a little kid, or a parent whose child had just won a gold medal.

  “This is great,” her dad enthused.

  Despite his excitement, Robin thought her father looked a little peaked.

  “Are you okay, Dad?”

  “I’m great. I haven’t had so much fun since... ” He paused as another thought caught up with him. “Well, I did just have a pretty terrific New Year’s Eve ... but before that, I can’t remember when I was so tickled.”

  “But you’re feeling okay?

  “First rate. Why, don’t I look it?”

  “Sure you do,” Robin lied. “Just checking.”

  There was something about his color she just didn’t like.

  “I can’t wait until you tear into this creep honey. You’re gonna—”

  Dan Phinney stopped when saw the look on his daughter’s face.

  “You’re not worried, are you?”

  “About Iggy Gross?” Robin rolled her eyes.

  “Then what?”

  Since Robin didn’t want to say anything about him not looking right, she told her father the other thing that was on her mind.

  “I can’t help feeling that Ant-knee’s sitting out there somewhere lapping all this up. That, behind it all, he’s got some other scheme. Something he’s going to unload on me. It’s almost like the jerk went out and grew a working brain, and that’s a very scary thought.”

  Dan snorted.

  “You worry too much. Listen, how about I drop in and say hello to Manfred? Haven’t seen him for a while, and I wouldn’t mind wetting my whistle with one of those brews of his.”

  Robin had awakened that morning with the firm intention of pushing the troubles of Herr Welk and Fraulein Krump aside for the day. With the rush of events, she had succeeded completely in meeting that goal. Now, she gave her father a quick summary on why a social call wouldn’t be such a good idea at the moment.

  “That’s terrible,” Dan said. “Poor kid.”

  “Yeah.”

  Robin was tempted to tell her father that she’d read her mother’s card ... but she couldn’t quite get it out.

  “Well, say hello to him for me, anyway, okay? Give the kid my condolences.”

  Dan pulled to the curb in front of Robin’s house.

  He kissed his daughter’s cheek.

  Then he stared off through the windshield and shook his head.

  “Life is just too damn short.” He looked at Robin. “You gotta make the most of it.”

  Chapter 26

  Manfred had taken the day off of work.

  He let Bianca sleep late. He was in no hurry to have to tell her the bad news. She’d been through enough as it was. He was still undecided as to whether he should lie about the circumstances of Ulrike’s death. The last thing he wanted was for Bianca to think that she had been responsible for her mother’s shooting death.

  Having lived under the thumb of Communist tyranny, Manfred had always hated the way the Party would revise history to suit its purposes. But now he was thinking that possibly a tram had run over Ulrike. Perhaps, as with most lies, the deception would not last forever, but it should serve long enough to spare Bianca’s feelings while she was still a child.

  When Bianca did awaken, it was with a scream.

  Manfred ran to the bedroom at the same time that Bianca flung the door open and burst out of the room. The little girl bounced off her father’s massive legs and landed on her bottom. She was looking up at him with her head spinning when he scooped her up into his arms. He held her head to his shoulder and crooned to her in their native tongue.

  “Es ganz recht, alles recht.” It’s all right, everything’s all right

  Bianca’s breathing, which had been rapid, calmed down. The comforting weight of Manfred’s huge arms enfolded her from shoulders to knees. He rocked her back and forth until he thought she’d fallen back to sleep, but then she lifted her head from his shoulders and spoke to him — in English.

  “Put me down, please.”

  Manfred looked her in the eye. She was no longer afraid, so he put her down.

  She walked to the sofa and sat. Then she extended her hand to him. He sat next to her and took it. They regarded one another.

  “Are you really my father?”

  “Yes,” Manfred said, not ja.

  “Were you really a traitor to the state?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that a bad thing?”

  “No, it was a bad state.”

  “Then why did Mama send you to jail?”

  “She was angry with me. She thought I was seeing another woman.”

  “Were you?”

  “No. I was seeing a spy.”

  “Is that worse?”

  “Sometimes it is enough to send you
to prison.”

  “I will stay away from spies then.”

  Manfred nodded.

  Bianca bit her lip, seemed to think deeply and frowned.

  “I was not seeing anyone else, not even a spy, but Mama tried to send me away with that terrible man. I do not understand why she was so angry with me.” The little girl’s chin began to tremble. “All I wanted was the money that should have been mine, and Mama was the one who taught me how important money is, so why did she want to send me away?”

  Bianca’s tears began to flow, but she cried silently.

  Manfred put his arm around Bianca and drew her close.

  She said, “I will stay with you forever, Father. I will never go back to Mama again. I wish she was dead.”

  Manfred moved off the sofa, knelt before his child and took both of her hands in his.

  “Bianca, you must never blame yourself for what I am about to tell you, and you must remember that for most of your life your mother tried in her own way to care for you.”

  Manfred took a deep breath and found the strength he needed to continue.

  “Bianca, your mama is dead.”

  Bianca looked at her father and made a leap of intuition. Any hope of disinformation on Manfred’s part was kaput.

  “That nasty man killed her, didn’t he? He was so angry. And when he couldn’t find me, he killed Mama.”

  Manfred nodded.

  “Will he come after me now? Will you let him?”

  “He is dead, too. Horst killed him.”

  “The Bear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I safe then?”

  “Yes.”

  Bianca looked at Manfred a long time before asking her next question.

  “Will you ... will you ever send me away?”

  “Never.”

  “Will anyone ever take you away from me? Send you to prison again?”

  Manfred stroked her cheek, loving his child so much he thought his heart would break. He used virtually the same words of reassurance that Dan Phinney had given to his daughter two floors up in the same building.

  “Only God will take me from you.”

  “Will he do it soon?” Bianca asked with a sniffle.