Strip Poker

by Nancy Bartholomew

  I started to say something, but there was no point; Becky Watley was past the point of caring.

  “Denny would’ve wanted it this way,” she said. “The Denny I married would’ve done the same thing. He wasn’t always mean. That thing in his brain did that. It turned him, made him into the cruel man everybody around here knew. But when we were first married, there wasn’t a better man. But that man left Denny’s body a long time ago and, well, sometimes you just need someone to lean on. I didn’t mean for it to get like this.”

  A tear leaked down one cheek, but Becky seemed not to notice. I stretched out a hand and patted her knee.

  “Listen,” I said, “who am I to judge? I don’t know the players here. I’m just trying to help out a friend.”

  Becky Watley didn’t trust easily. “What friend? Are you working with the cops?”

  “No. I work with the man the police say shot your husband. I don’t think my boss killed Denny. I just want to find the guy who did it so they can let an innocent guy go.”

  “Well, it wasn’t Turk!”

  “Hey, I’m not saying it was. I’m not thinking that at all,” I lied. “I’d just like the chance to talk to him.”

  Becky shook her head slowly back and forth. “So would I,” she said, “but he’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged like it puzzled her but was maybe inevitable, like she was used to bad luck and trouble.

  “I know he saw something he shouldn’t have seen,” she whispered, “and now he’s scared. He said it’s not safe to be around me, but he won’t tell me why and he won’t come back until he knows it’s safe.”

  Now, what did that mean?

  Fifteen

  Nailor looked as bad as I felt the next morning. He arrived right on the dot of 6:45, looking like he hadn’t slept either. He picked up my suitcase, threw it on the backseat and turned to open the passenger side door, all without saying a word. When he finally did speak, his voice was hoarse and raspy with fatigue.

  “This all?” he asked, picking up my carry-on bag with one hand and Fluffy’s dog carrier with the other.

  I was wearing black. A black Harley jacket, courtesy of a former “friend,” black straight-legged pants, a black turtleneck, black highheeled low-cut boots, and black sunglasses that hid my lack of sleep and the fact that I’d spent half the night crying.

  “That’s it,” I said, forcing my voice to attempt cheery but sounding more like a cracked-voice adolescent boy.

  The curtains moved in Raydean’s window and then I heard the sound of one lock after another turning as she opened her front door and stood somehow looking like a kindergartner being left behind on the first day of school. In her arms was a large round bundle wrapped in aluminum foil.

  I looked at her and Nailor and realized that in the swirl of the last few days, I hadn’t even managed to go Christmas shopping, let alone wrap anything up or bake anything to leave with them.

  “Sugar,” Raydean said, “this here’s for your mama ‘n’ them.” She rushed right on. “I’m figuring we’ll have us a little Christmas of our own when you get back, do our present exchanging then. Won’t we, Lieutenant?” she called, favoring Nailor with an expectant expression on her face.

  “Sure,” he said, smiling at her like he meant it. “That’s a good idea. You cooking or you want me to bring the doughnuts?”

  Raydean pretended to consider the question. “Why young’un,” she said, “you cain’t never take too many precautions. Let’s us do both. That way, if the scan don’t run clean on the doughnuts, we’ll have us a backup food source.”

  Nailor nodded like he understood the threat of alien contamination and slid behind the wheel of the Crown Victoria. I walked across the street, up Raydean’s walkway, carefully avoiding the booby-trapped third square of concrete, and up onto her stoop. She handed me the foil-wrapped cake and would’ve run back in the house had I not taken her into my arms and hugged her so hard she was nearly swept off her feet.

  “I’ll be back the day after Christmas,” I said. “I’m flying out in the late afternoon, so it’ll be after suppertime when I get in.”

  Raydean nodded. “Me and Pat’re gonna set up the tree today,” she said. “Pat’s fixing to take me to the mental health clinic for my shot. Said she wants to avoid the Christmas rush.” Raydean snorted. “Like the mental health’s gonna have a run on families looking to buy gift certificates!”

  Nailor backed the car out of the driveway and sat idling in the street, a sign that time was a’wasting to his way of thinking.

  “I love you, Raydean,” I said. Fluffy, standing by my side, whined and yipped once. To Raydean this meant Fluffy echoed my sentiment.

  “I love y’all too,” she said. “But bring me back a cheese steak, all right? And not one of them touristy things they make down on South Street. I want some meat on mine!”

  I laughed and started back down the steps to the car where Nailor sat waiting patiently.

  “Cheese steaks, hoagies, and soft pretzels,” I called back over my shoulder. “We’ll have a feast. December twenty-sixth. Eight P.M.”

  Raydean hooted. “Let them Flemish be advised: Foreign food don’t get no better than Philadelphia!”

  I slid in beside Nailor, and Fluffy hopped in beside me, trembling. Whether it was from the cool morning air or the anticipation of an airplane flight, I couldn’t tell, but I found my own hands shaking as we rolled off down the street. Nailor drove with the calm assurance of a man who spends hours behind the wheel.

  “We got an ID on the victim,” he said, purely professional, easier than talking about what was sitting right in front of us.

  “Who was he?”

  “Local biker. Everybody called him Tinky, but his name was Edward Little. Small-time dope dealer. A few arrests, nothing big, really. That’s all we have so far.”

  I stared out the window, looking at the gaudy Christmas decorations that covered little Floridian bungalows.

  “Was he a friend of Denny’s?”

  “Not that we know of. Nolowicki said maybe he was Denny’s dealer, and that seems as good a theory as any, but then we don’t know why he’d come to his funeral.”

  I nodded and turned away, staring out the car window, unable to focus on the details of Nailor’s investigation or anything other than the fact that things between us just weren’t right. I thought about telling him about Becky Watley and Turk but decided against it. After all, I didn’t know enough to give him more than a “he said—she said.” I didn’t have anything firsthand.

  The sky was a brilliant blue, just right for flying, and it was unseasonably warm. Nailor approached the airport, and for an instant, I could see the water of the bay, sparkling in the sunlight. The terminal stood out like a tropical reminder of everything I was leaving: green tin roof, Art Deco architecture, clean and bright. Florida was nothing like Philly. It was breathing and three-dimensional.

  Nailor pulled up to the curb, right by the curbside check-in, and hopped out of the car. It was then I realized he had no intention of coming inside. He wasn’t going to draw out a long good-bye, or stand by the terminal gate waving as I walked away from him. Nailor was doing it clean.

  He handed my bags over to the skycap, waited while I coaxed Fluffy into her crate, and then turned to me, smiling as if I were merely stepping into the grocery store for a gallon of milk.

  “Have a good Christmas,” he said. “Take care of that family of yours.”

  It might’ve flown. We might’ve pulled it off, cool and casual, had a stupid tear not escaped, spilling over onto my cheek.

  “Hey, what’s this?” he whispered, reaching up to wipe the tear away.

  “The sun’s really bothering my eyes,” I said. And then spoiled it all by stepping into his arms.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This Florida sunlight really takes it out of you.” He kissed the top of my head and held me for a moment, until the skycap interrupted us and it became evident that I was
going to have to turn my attention to leaving.

  I felt Nailor slip something into my pocket, a small box with a bow on the top. And there I was with nothing for him.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “Wait until I get back. We’ll have our own Christmas.”

  Nailor broke the embrace and stepped back so he could see me. “I want you to have something for Christmas morning,” he said. “We’ll do the rest when you get back.”

  Fluffy whined and I wanted to. Instead, I smiled. “I’ll be back in three days,” I said. “I’ll bring you a big surprise.”

  He reached out and cupped my chin in his fingers. “Just bring me you, safe and sound, all right?” And then he kissed me.

  I spent the entire time waiting for the flight huddled in a stall of the ladies’ room, crying into a soggy tissue. Somehow I missed the call that came on my cell phone, missed it until I reached to turn the phone off before boarding the plane.

  I pressed in the buttons, looking to see who’d called, hoping it was Nailor, but the caller ID only said RESTRICTED NUMBER. I punched in the code to hear my messages, hoping like hell to hear his voice, wishing with all my heart that Nailor could say something magical to make it all better. But it wasn’t him, and what the recorded message said wasn’t at all magical.

  “I need to talk to you,” said a deep male voice I didn’t recognize, muffled and indistinct. “You’re breaking some very important rules, Sierra. Maybe you don’t know what happens when you break the rules.”

  I stood still for a moment, willing my heartbeat to slow down, forcing myself to turn off the phone and put it away, aware that the flight attendant was growing more and more impatient with my delay.

  I looked outside again and made myself stand just a little bit straighter, just in case somebody was watching, or thinking maybe I was afraid. Good, I thought, someone is pissed off. Then maybe I’m close.

  I looked around the empty waiting room. Maybe I was close, but maybe the killer was too.

  Sixteen

  As I stepped onto the plane I figured the temperature would probably reach eighty degrees that day in Panama City. It didn’t feel like Christmas, despite the wreaths attached to the light posts and the Christmas carols on the radio. It never felt like Christmas in Panama City, not to an ex-Yankee. For me, it isn’t Christmas until I step off the plane in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve, and Ma starts to cry.

  Pa tries to act like he doesn’t know us, on account of we’re both crying like babies and clinging to each other. Pa resents public displays of affection. For him, affection is saying, “I’ll go get the car so’s your Ma don’t hurt her corns walkin’.”

  He drives the car up to the baggage claim and parks, big as the moon, right in front of the cop who’s blowing his whistle and threatening to ticket any imbecile dumb enough to leave his car unattended.

  “Hey,” Pa yells, whipping his fire chiefs badge out and flashing it like he’s maybe the freaking mayor, “have a little respect, here. I got business inside.”

  The cop quits blowing, but he doesn’t look sorry. They never do. It would be like a dog backing down off another dog in his own territory. So he just stares at Pa, who stares right back, and then Pa walks inside to grab my bag outta Ma’s hand.

  “What, what? You gotta throw your back out on Christmas Eve? Give me that!” That’s how Pa tells Ma he loves her. Ma was trying to prove she loved me by grabbing the bag off the carousel before I could see what she was doing.

  Pa whips the power-steering wheel half to death as he pulls away from the curb and heads home. He doesn’t like venturing far from his little corner of Philly. He says you never know what kind of insane lunatic will take a potshot at you downtown. I say, “Yo, Pa, didn’t Vinny Donatelli wack Big Red Runzi not three hundred feet from your own Sons of Italy Social Club?”

  “That was different, Sierra,” he grumps. “That was business.”

  Oh yeah, totally different, I think.

  Pa makes it home in record time, under twenty minutes. We drive out of the airport, shooting up onto Penrose Avenue over the top of the stinkin’ Schuylkill River, past the refineries with the orange flames that shoot up into the starlit Philadelphia night. Past the auto salvage at the foot of Passayunk, where the old guy sells soft pretzels in the daytime. Right past the Montrose Diner, where Pa takes me for a slice of pie and coffee on our way back to the airport. Moyamensing Street takes us under the Schuylkill expressway. Then Pa pulls out onto 20th Street and I’m in my old neighborhood. It’s freaking beautiful. I start watching for Mifflin Street, my heart pounding like the Mummers String Band warming up for the parade. When I see the spire of St. Edmunds, just ahead there on 23rd, I cross myself and hold my breath. Pa is about to undertake his life-threatening parallel parking job.

  “Piece of junk car!” he swears. But I don’t care, because I’m home.

  I jump out of the car behind Ma, who was angling to leave as soon as Pa started swearing. I can’t beat her to the door and it wouldn’t matter if I did. There are six locks to be undone, three more than last year, and I long ago quit trying to keep up with the keys.

  “Sierra, wait,” she shrieks, laughing as I try to bust in ahead of her. “Let me cover your eyes. I got a surprise in there.”

  “Aw, Ma! Give me a break here! I’m freezing and I gotta go!” But Ma isn’t listening. She is trying to wrap her work-gnarled fingers around my face, standing on tiptoe, even with me half-squatting to help. I know what’s coming. It is the same every year, and every year we must repeat the ritual.

  I hear the door swinging open, and Perry Como on the ancient stereo. It smells like spaghetti inside, warm and moist with steam. Garlic bread. Baking. Home. I hear people, too. People trying to be quiet, muffled snickers and movement. Behind me Pa puffs up the steps with my bag.

  “What you got in this thing, Sierra, bricks?” he yells, ’cause Pa always yells, he never speaks. I think that’s from being a Chief, yelling at fire scenes. “Ma, move it! Her bag weighs a ton. You want me to get hemorrhoids here?”

  “Surprise!” the voices shout out, and Ma propels me forward into the living room, letting her hands fall away from my eyes.

  There they all stand, big hulking men, my brothers, laughing and running up to me. Grabbing me in their arms and twirling me from one to the other. Francis, David, Alfonse, and Joey, all there, smiling like big goofs, beers in their hands.

  Behind them the table is set with Ma’s best china and a white lace tablecloth. The dining room is so small that with us Lavotinis all grown there is barely space to squeeze into our chairs. Francis, the oldest, lights the candles and pours the Chianti. Ma bustles around in the kitchen, shooing us all away when we try to help. Later, after mass and after Ma is tipsy with the one glass of wine Pa will convince her to drink, they will dance. My brothers and I will pretend not to notice at first, but then, as always, we will be drawn to the door of the kitchen.

  There, in the dimly lit room, they come together, whirling around on the old linoleum to music we have heard since childhood. There he holds her and she gently lays her head on his shoulder. They have done this every Christmas Eve for as long as we can remember. Even in the years when five children lived at home and times were tough. Even when they couldn’t imagine where the money would come from to pay for those presents under the tree. Still they danced.

  We hold our breath, watching, not wanting to disturb the strange-to-us moment when our parents become adults in love, and we, the children, outsiders. But they see us, they always do finally see us. Ma blushes and Pa gets all flustered.

  “What’s the matter with youse?” he yells, and we all giggle. “Can’t a man dance with his own wife, in his own house?”

  “Yeah, Pa, sure,” we all answer, because now he is smiling at her again. Suddenly, his arms and hers are open, and the children are enfolded, even now as adults. It is a ritual. A reminder that in my world there are certain things I can count on, certain truths that will always hold, no matter how far away
I am, or how hot the Florida sun is on my homesick body.

  But this year it was all different. I was coming home a day earlier than usual, and I was leaving right after Christmas, instead of my usual New Year’s Day departure. This year something was terribly wrong, and I knew how bad it was the second I stepped off the plane and found Francis waiting for me instead of Ma and Pa.

  Francis looked grim, despite his attempt to smile and hug me. His face looked gray and there were thick circles under his eyes. He was trying to be the oldest brother and act tough, but I could read him and I knew he was aching inside. He was scaring me with his silence. I waited, forcing myself not to ask, until he’d led me away from the gate, drawing me into an empty waiting area.

  “Where’s Ma?” I asked him.

  “She’s in the hospital, Sierra,” he said. “She made us swear not to tell you until you got here and I could take you to her.” He paused, sucked in his breath, and let out the big secret. “Sierra, Ma’s got breast cancer.”

  I don’t remember leaving the airport. I know Francis picked up my luggage. I know we somehow found his car and drove away, but looking back on it, I find nothing in the memory files, just the feeling of blind, white-light, panic. Ma needed me and I wasn’t there, and couldn’t get there fast enough.

  Francis was in his stiff-upper-lip, emotions-in-check, standardoperating mode. He presented me with the facts just as they had occurred, nothing omitted.

  “Ma had a checkup or something,” he said. “That’s when they found it. Apparently, Ma knew it was there, but she kept telling herself it was something else.”

  “It” was cancer, I wanted to scream at him, but I didn’t. Instead I let him go on and on, flooding me with every fact he’d been hanging on to, knowing he had to do it his way or lose it completely.

  “They went in yesterday and did a complete mastectomy,” he said. “It was in over half her lymph nodes,” he said. “That ain’t good, but they’re gonna do chemo and the doc’s the best in the business. Joey’s girlfriend works in his department at Penn. Ma’s gonna be all right. She’s in a lot of pain right now, but that’s to be expected.”