Backstab (15 page)

“Easy,” Marlene said. “You said he was so sick and groggy, he could hardly talk. I could see him forgetting his inhaler, using the one on his ladder and then forgetting to replace it. You do dumb things when you're sick. And, Francesca, you said that man was sick.”

“He was also afraid. He was afraid of dying just the way he did.”

“There's a reason why people have those fears.
I've always believed they're slightly psychic. On some level, they know how they're going to die. I can give you several examples, but the most dramatic was Mrs. Ames. She was a regular customer who was afraid of flying. Went on and on about how she was going to die in a plane crash, every time she had to fly. I used to razz her. We all did. I even gave her a magazine article saying air travel is safer than car travel. Didn't convince Mrs. Ames. She said it didn't make any difference how good the statistics were—if you were on the wrong side of them, you were still dead. She died in that Florida crash. I thought her epitaph should have been ‘I told you so.' ”

I laughed. Marlene didn't believe me any more than Detective Mark Mayhew did, but at least she listened. She didn't try to psychoanalyze me. “You haven't said anything yet to convince me that their deaths were anything but what the cops said. Mark is in here all the time. He isn't just any cop. He's a good one. He's solved some big cases, like the murder of that little girl. He can be arrogant, but he has a good heart, a good head, and a cute tush.”

“For shame, treating men as sex objects.”

“Okay, I'll get serious,” Marlene said. “You asked for my opinion, and this is it: People die of asthma all the time. Single people don't take care of themselves as well as married people, and they don't live as long. It's a fact. It's also a fact that bartenders get killed in holdups, and not just city bartenders. I can name you at least three I know who died, and one worked at a
high-priced place in the county. But I promise you I'll keep my mind open. My eyes too.”

“Good. You have a lot to see here. Everyone eats at Uncle Bob's, especially if they keep late hours.”

“Tell me about it. Last night, besides the Snake Woman, we had the chief of police and the mayor's press assistant—but not together—two known drug dealers, three cops, and several lowlifes with homemade
LOVE
and
HATE
tattoos on their hands. Speaking of lowlifes, even some of the
Gazette
staff are starting to eat here, I mean besides you, and they are lousy tippers, especially your editor.”

Figured. Hadley was better at hanging on to his money than his girl friends.

“Oh, God, look who just walked in,” said Marlene.

It was the
Gazette
gossip columnist, Babe Currane, known as Babe because he greets everyone with “Hiya, babe, whatcha got for me?” Babe scanned the room for important people. His eyes flicked over Marlene. All he could see of me was the back of my head, and with any luck he couldn't see that. Babe sat two booths away, in back of a skinhead with a
KISS
T-shirt. He ordered blueberry pancakes with extra whipped cream.

“How come he eats like that and never gains an ounce?” said Marlene. “Babe is so skinny and sad, he looks like an undertaker.”

“There's a reason he looks like an undertaker,”
I said. “He knows where all the bodies are buried.”

“I wish he'd bury himself. He's never written one thing I know that's accurate.”

“He gets it right often enough,” I said. “I used to sit near him at the
CG.
It was an education in the art of negotiation. When people complained he had an item wrong, he'd say things like, ‘Okay, sir, maybe I did have a small part incorrect. But I do know for a fact that you are having sex with your new sales associate.' Suddenly, the guy would drop the complaint.”

“Speaking of associate, he used to be seen around town with a very handsome young man,” Marlene said. “Babe said the guy was his driver.”

“There's a lot of speculation whether Babe is gay,” I said. “I think he gets off on getting information for his column. Sitting near him was like listening outside a bedroom door. It was embarrassing. Someone would call with a hot tip and Babe would be on the phone panting and begging for it. ‘Tell me. You can tell me. Go ahead, tell me,' he'd say. That would be the seduction, and he'd be good at it. Soon the person would give in. While they were doing it, Babe would say, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you.' He had a regular rhythm going. The I love you, I love yous would come harder and faster, until the person reached the climax. Then Babe would shout, ‘Good, Good! Oh, God. Oh, God.' ”

“Gross,” said Marlene.

“I'm sorry to say that once Babe had them, he didn't respect them. He'd hustle the person off
the phone, then slam it down and say, ‘That stupid bitch! Who does she think she is?' ”

“It's nice to know Babe is as attractive inside as outside,” Marlene said. “Why does your newspaper let that slimeball do that to people?”

“Because Hadley, the managing editor, loves gossip, and Babe tells him everything. Knowledge is power. Babe makes himself useful at work too. He's a company spy. Anything you tell him, you might as well tell Hadley. Anything he sees or hears goes straight to Hadley. And, since it looks like Charlie's on his way up, he gives Charlie juicy tidbits too, to keep on his good side.”

“Did you know they were both in here, Hadley and Charlie?” Marlene said.

“Together? Now, there's a scoop!”

“They didn't come in together, if that's what you mean. And they both had different girl friends. But I think Charlie passed off his date on Hadley. Hadley often comes here with his new squeeze. He thinks we're too dumb to know what he's up to, and, besides, even if we do know, we don't count,” Marlene said sourly. “The one I saw him running around with early in February was a looker, by the way, a little blonde with more class than his latest fling.”

“His latest fling is the comics editor,” I said. “Hadley's taste is eclectic. If she says yes, he's in love. At least for three or four weeks.”

We were interrupted by a lugubrious voice. “Oh, Babe, you don't want to say that. I know
Hadley and I have to tell you, I love him like a brother.”

Oh, damn. It was Babe, blueberries on his breath, coming down the aisle to our booth. The
Gazette
gossip columnist looked thinner and more mournful than ever, like a codfish with a secret sorrow.

“Why, Babe, how nice to see you,” I said, telling my first lie of the day before ten o'clock.

Marlene didn't bother to lie politely. She said, “I hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation. We tried to make it entertaining for you.”

“Now, Babe,” he said. “You shouldn't talk about people that way.”

I hung my head. Had Babe heard me making fun of his phone sex routine?

“Come off it,” Marlene said. “We were just doing what you do—gossiping. Except we don't have pro status. We don't get paid for it.”

“I don't gossip,” said Babe, looking like an offended codfish. “I present the news in its embryonic form.”

“Ever think about an abortion?” said Marlene.

This was getting out of hand. It was fun to score off Babe now, but he would even up the game later. I should stop it. But I'd already screwed myself by yakking about the man's sex life. Might as well let Marlene have her fun. She was enjoying pinning Babe to the wall.

“If you're really presenting the news, why not write about your bosses? Charlie and Hadley bring their girl friends in here all the time, and I've seen them with some really strange chicks. I
guess boys will be boys. How come you don't give your readers this scoop: Charlie, editor of the Family section, rarely spends a night at home with his own family. Hadley Harris, the man who writes ad nauseam about the joys of his darling daughters, regularly betrays his wife and children. After all, this was the man who last Sunday said in the
Gazette
, ‘Family is the only reality. Life is not real until you have children. They fulfill you. When I see my girls play soccer, I don't see two freckle-faced, skinned-kneed imps at play, I see my future, I see my past.'

“Maybe if he really thought he'd see his past in the paper, he wouldn't play around on his wife and those two cute kids.”

“Hadley really called those two brats ‘imps'?” I said, astounded. “They've been thrown out of three schools.”

Babe and Marlene ignored me and kept glaring at each other. I had to break it up. I tried again. This time I said something diplomatic. “I'm sure an important man like Hadley is used to having his affairs discussed,” I said. Oops. “Affairs” was a poor choice of words. So much for my diplomacy.

“Maybe if he did, he wouldn't sneak around on his family so much,” said Marlene.

“Don't be so rough on Hadley,” Babe said, looking like a noble cod. “We can't understand the pressures a great man faces. Sympathetic female companionship can help a man through hard times.” Marlene snorted, but Babe gave no indication that he'd heard her. He continued his
history lesson. “Look at Jack Kennedy. Sure, he had a few affairs, but he was still a great president.”

“He'd have been a greater president if he'd kept his pants zipped,” said Marlene.

I kicked her under the table. That was no way for an Irish Democrat to talk. Maybe the kick woke up Marlene. She abruptly changed the subject. At first I thought she was pouring on the flattery like maple syrup. “Everyone was talking about your column this morning,” she said. “Congratulations.” They had been too. Customers pointed out three spelling errors, two wrong names and one error of fact—a record, even for a Babe column.

“What did they say?” asked Babe, hungry for praise.

“They said, ‘
Good
is not the word for Babe today.' ”

Babe looked at her suspiciously, like a codfish that swallowed a bad worm. Babe was a lot of things, but he was not stupid. He knew when he was being shivvied. Marlene had declared war, and she was going to keep it up. She was fearless. “Look, if Hadley and Charlie didn't want us talking about their affairs, they wouldn't flaunt them in public,” she said.

“They don't flaunt them. This isn't public,” said Babe, his voice scornful. He looked around the room at the tables where South Siders were chowing down.

“You could have surprised me,” Marlene said. “The place is packed.”

“Nobody goes here,” said Babe snidely. “It's too crowded.” He stomped out the door.

Their voices must have gone up during the fight. The skinhead was obviously listening. He had turned his head slightly to get a better earful. I saw he had a cut on his bare dome. He must have cut himself shaving his skull. I wondered if men put toilet paper on a skull-shaving cut like they did when they shaved their face.

Babe left Marlene fuming. “Well, there's a little more room now that his swelled head is out of here,” she said.

I groaned. “There's another reason he looks like an undertaker. He'll bury my career,” I said. “He heard me make fun of his phone sex act. He'll report everything we said to Hadley and Charlie.”

“He's doing that anyway,” said Marlene. “You should hear some of the things he says behind your back. It's better to have an open enemy.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said.

“Yeah, what can he do to me?” she said. “I'm just a waitress.”

I'd never heard her sound so bitter. “Guys like him make me sick,” she said. “He comes in here like a big shot, hounds the customers, and mistreats the waitresses. Last week he had Diane, who's seven months pregnant, running back and forth waiting on him like he was some pasha. The worst was when that poor thing was loaded down with plates and coffeepots and he calls her over and says, ‘Light my cigarette.' Light his cigarette! What does he think this is—the Four Seasons?
Then, after all that, he complained about the blueberry pancakes, but not until he ate every bite. He refused to pay, and didn't tip Diane. What a pig! Hadley and Charlie aren't much better, one running the staff ragged and the other tipping fifty cents. If you ask me, the whole
City Gazette
bunch needs to be taken down a notch or two.”

Marlene was angry. The laughing waitress who could handle anything was out to lunch, replaced by a furious and frustrated woman. Then the Marlene I knew came back, like the sun breaking through a cloud. “Break's over,” she said, jumping up. “I'm going to have some fun. You see that skinhead who was sitting by Babe?”

“How can I miss him? If I didn't see the shaved head, there's the motorcycle boots trying to pass as jackboots and the
KISS
T-shirt with the SS lightning bolts.”

“Yeah, him. You can't see his hands, but he has swastikas on his knuckles. They're not tattoos. Looks like he drew them himself with black ink.”

“That way he can wash them off before he goes home to his mother.”

“He's going to wash them off now,” said Marlene. “I'd march his butt straight back to the men's room, but I don't want to make a martyr out of him. It would upset my older customers. Watch this.” She went smiling to his booth. “Can I get you anything else, sir?” she said respectfully. I couldn't hear what Skinhead mumbled. But Marlene said, “Certainly. Another large milk
coming up.” She was back in two minutes with the milk. The glass seemed to slip right out of her hand. It landed on the table, splashed Skinhead's hands, and flowed into his lap. “Watch it,” he screeched as the cold milk hit his crotch.

I knew Marlene wasn't that clumsy. She could carry six loaded platters on her arms. “Oh, sir, I'm so sorry,” she said. “Let me get you another glass on the house. And the rest room is right over there.” By the time Marlene had mopped up the milk, the skinhead was back at the table with a red face, wet pants, and scrubbed, swastika-free hands.