The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (29 page)

“That you forgot to bring the envelope, I know,” he said. His eyes really was sending all sorts of signals, but my brain wasn't picking up any of them. I was still focused on telling Trafficante that I was a Morris and then getting shot in the face or whatever. And it ain't often I get homed in like that, so him interfering was real frustrating.

“Johnny was telling me something, kid,” Trafficante said. “So maybe you should wait for him outside.”

“Yeah, that's Johnny. He's always saying something,” Willie said. “Thing is, half the time he ain't saying nothing worth saying, and the other half he's just getting himself into a mess of hot water. That's why he's got me.”

Wasn't no arguing with that. Still, I was bound and determined to be done with hiding, done with running. So I wasn't about to let him shut me up.

I turned back to Mr. Trafficante.

“I need to tell you the—”

“Truth about Morris's son,” Willie said. I shot him a glare.

“Truth? What truth?” Trafficante said to me.

“See, here's what the deal is,” I said. My palms was starting to sweat something fierce. “Fact is, Captain Morris's son is somebody you ain't expecting him to be. Somebody you done already know, you just don't know you know him.”

Santo wiped a tear from his eye and leaned over the table. He clenched his fists.

“Who is it?” Santo said through his teeth. “I swear to God I'll kill that son of a—”

“You can't kill somebody who's already dead,” Willie said.

Me and Mr. Trafficante both looked at him like a couple of bullfrogs staring at a fake lily pad.

“Rudy,” Willie went on. “Rudy was Captain Morris's son.”

Mr. Trafficante looked back out the window.

“Get this lying Tigger away from me,” he said. “And he better thank his lucky stars I don't have a gun.”

“Oh, I do thank the Good Lord for that,” Willie said. “But I ain't lying. Maybe I wish I was, but I ain't.” Willie opened the envelope he was carrying and pulled out a great big piece of paper.

It was a birth certificate.

He slid it over in front of Mr. Trafficante. On the top it said “Panama City Hospital.” Under that it had the baby's name, Rudy Trafficante. And then it had the parents' names and, sure enough, right there where it asked for the father, it said what Willie'd claimed.

It said “Richard Morris.”

Mr. Trafficante stared at that for a bit, then he shot his eyes back up at Willie.

“How did you get this?”

“Getting things is sort of what I do,” Willie said. “Me and Johnny was given the address of that there hospital, so I called them up and they was happy to oblige.”

“The city in the letter?” I asked him. “So it
was
another code. Dadgum.” That sort of put the brakes on what I was going to say. I reckoned telling Santo that I was Morris's son would probably be anticlimactic now.

Santo slammed the table with his fists. Yeah, I should just keep my mouth shut.

“You smug little punk,” he said. “Did you come here to hurt me? Do you have any idea who I am?”

Willie shifted in his seat real awkward-like and reached into his pocket for a second. Couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard a click or something.

“I got some kind of an idea,” Willie said. “You own buildings, right?”

Santo actually started laughing at that, but not in a happy kind of way.

“Sure, kid. Sure.”

Willie picked up the envelope again.

“That's what these say, at least,” he said. He pulled out three more big papers. At the top of each one was a photo of a key. Specifically, it was them keys that Rudy'd had. Under each one was another photo showing an address. And under that was a list of dates.

“See, here's some buildings you own. And those dates at the bottom, those are times them buildings have been the target of FBI raids. You know, for all them drugs and prostitutes your fellas keep pushing.”

Santo picked up one of the pictures, glanced at it, then put it back down.

“I don't own any of these.”

“I guess technically that's true,” Willie said. “But you do own a company in Texas, don't you? East Texas Financial, or something like that?”

Willie pulled out another paper. This one had a fella's picture on it.

“This fella here is on the payroll, right? He also works in a federal building at night. Which is where he makes sure the records of all them building purchases gets swept under the rug.”

Now Santo started looking worried. He picked up that photo of the fella.

Willie wasn't done talking.

“Too bad that fella loaned Rudy his keys a little while ago, huh? And too bad each key's got an ID code on it so they know whose it is.”

Santo crumpled the photo up and threw it across the room. He stood up and towered over Willie.

Now Willie started looking a little worried.

“Who are you working for?” Santo said. “Who's trying to do me in?”

The fella with the sandwich came running out of the kitchen again, followed by another fella about the same size and probably about as intelligent.

“Everything all right, boss?” the one fella said.

Santo grabbed Willie and pulled him up from his seat. “This kid's pegged me. He knows too much.”

“He knows about the hit you called on Ken—”

“Shut up!” Santo hollered. “He knows about ETF and the racket we're running.”

Santo shoved Willie into them thugs' arms. They grabbed him and held him up off the ground.

“But my question is,” Santo went on, “how do you know? You working for the Feds?”

Willie started wiggling his feet. I wasn't entirely sure what to do for him, but I reckoned I could maybe fight one of them fellas off with a fork or something. Might not win, but it's the thought that counts.

“What if I am working for the Feds?” Willie said. “You wouldn't kill a Fed, would you?”

Santo got the creepiest, sickest smile I've ever seen.

“Tigger, you've got no idea who I'm willing to kill.”

I jumped up. “He ain't working for the Feds. He's working with me.”

Santo narrowed his eyes at me. “That doesn't tell me anything.”

“It does so,” I said. “ 'Cause I'm working for the Three Caballeros.”

Santo huffed. “I knew Thomassen was a Caballero.”

“No he ain't. You don't know who they are,” I said. “In fact, you don't really know who we are.”

“Oh, I know you,” he said. I reckoned he was aiming to scare me. Didn't work.

“You really don't know me,” I said. “But I know you. We know you and all the underhanded things you been doing. And that's why we came to give you a message.”

He didn't say nothing back, so I figured that meant I should tell it to him.

“Don't get in our way,” I said. “And we won't get in yours. For now.”

“Or else what? You take me to the Feds?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. Then I tried to think of what Mr. Thomassen would say right about then. “Or maybe we'll deal with you ourselves.”

“Kid, you got some mighty strong
cojones
to be threatening me.”

“Say,” Willie said, still dangling his feet in the air, “speaking of the Feds, unless I'm mistaken, that's them coming up over the hill.”

They all looked out the window and, sure enough, Short-Guy was heading our way with his posse of fellas. They was state troopers, but I reckon when you're feeling real guilty, you can't much tell the difference between them and federal agents.

Santo stared for about two seconds, then he grabbed all them photos and everything else and ran out to his car. Them two other fellas dropped Willie, followed him, and they ripped out of that parking lot like a bat out of hell.

Willie picked himself up off the floor. He reached in his pocket and I heard another click.

“What's that?”

He pulled a little box thing out of his pocket. There was a wire coming off of it and going up his shirt.

“This here is a CIA-commissioned mini–tape recorder. And we got him admitting to all that mess right here on the tape.”

Well, dadgum.

“So you was putting all this together? Getting all this ready just in case something like this happened?”

Willie grinned. “I've learned to expect the worst when I'm helping you out.”

That made sense.

“Still, it's a real stroke of luck that you figured out what Tommy meant about that address, ain't it?”

Willie grabbed the envelope and folded it up.

“Huh?” he said. “Oh, the birth certificate thing? Yeah, no, Tommy was drunk when he wrote that address. It didn't go to nothing.”

“But the certificate—”

“Was fake. Short-Guy had Marge make it for him real fast after I told him my idea.” He laughed at the look on my face. “Ain't it something what the CIA can do when they're put on the spot?”

“Yeah,” I said as Short-Guy and them other fellas started to come in. “Especially when they get a little help from a junior agent.”

“Except I wasn't being a junior agent when I came up with this,” he said. “Lying, cheating, jumping headfirst into danger without a second thought? I was being like Johnny Cannon.”

I was sure glad at least one of us was.

A
nd that's why Short-Guy moved in with us, 'cause he ain't so sure Trafficante's going to keep his distance,” I said to Ma's gravestone. “Which has been real weird, 'cause I don't reckon we've had a house this full since forever.”

It was September 23, a little over two weeks after Rudy died and Tammy Jane was born. It also just so happened to be Ma's birthday. And this time I'd brought her some really good flowers. Sora'd helped me pick them out. And she promised to keep on doing it every year, for as long as she was living with us. Which Pa said was maybe going to be forever. And I was fine with that.

“By the way, did you know that on this day back in 1806, Lewis and Clark arrived back in St. Louis after they had their big adventure? Funny thing is, that's where Mr. Thomassen is at too. Apparently he tracked down the fella that sold Rudy the federal key and he's going to see what them Trafficantes was planning.”

I heard a car pull up to the front gate. I looked over and saw it was the Mackers'. Martha got out and walked over to where I was at.

“Hey,” she said. It was the first real word she'd said to me since Snake Pond.

“Hey,” I said. “You finally came to meet Ma?”

She looked at the gravestone, then she smiled. She knelt down.

“Hello, Mrs. Cannon. My name's Martha. Your son and I—” She looked up at me. “We're friends.”

She let that settle in for what it was worth, and it worked just fine to me. At least it was a step forward. Then she stood back up. I reckoned maybe we could start Operation Happy Ending again.

“Hey, you want to come fishing?” I asked. “Me and Pa are taking Tammy Jane and Sora down to the lake to catch a few, or at least to waste some time together. Short-Guy's going too. And, if you want to come along, it could be a lot of fun.”

She sighed and stared at Ma's gravestone another couple of seconds, then she looked back at me. Her cheeks was wet.

“I can't. I'm moving away. That's why I came out here to see you,” she said, and I forgot what I was saying.

“You're what?”

“Moving. My mom and I. We're leaving Cullman. Leaving Alabama.”

It felt like I got punched in the gut.

“What do you mean? Where you going?”

“Mrs. Buttke's son offered my mom a job at his hospital in Detroit. And, since my dad sent up the divorce papers, she's decided to take the position.”

All of a sudden, everything around us got darker and uglier. All of a sudden, I felt like I was in a cemetery.

“But, I come here and tell my ma stories, all these stories. And you're—” I swallowed real hard. “You're the girl in my stories. I
need
you to be the girl in my stories.”

Her eyes started watering up real bad.

“No, Johnny, I need to be the girl in my own stories.” She grabbed me and gave me a hug. “I'm sorry. We're leaving now. Please tell Willie I said good-bye.”

“You ain't going to tell him?”

“No, I can't. It's too—I can't. Please, just tell him, okay?”

I nodded, she hugged me again, and then she walked away.

She got ten steps off before she stopped. She came running back to me.

“I almost forgot,” she said.

Then she kissed me.

Right on the lips.

All the blood in my entire body went straight to my feet and I felt like I might pass out. She let go of me and I couldn't wipe the goofiest grin of my life off my mouth.

“There,” she said. “Operation Happy Ending is accomplished.”

My brain started sounding the fire alarms.

“Wait, you knew?”

“I'm a girl,” she said. “We always know.”

She turned and ran back to the car. Mrs. Macker honked and waved to me, and then they drove on down the road. Just like that.

After a bit, I told Ma I'd see her later. I went and got into the truck and drove on up to the Parkinses' house, where Pa and Sora was waiting for me with Tammy Jane.

Everybody was real happy when I walked into the living room. Short-Guy was down there too. He was in the kitchen with Mrs. Parkins and she was teaching him how to make cornbread. Apparently that girl of his, Marge, really loved cornbread, so he wanted to surprise her when he saw her again. Plus it'd be good to take with us fishing.

As soon as I walked in, Willie started talking ninety miles an hour.

“Hey, guess what just happened? Bob Gorman called, and you know how he's been in my dad's fan club ever since the explosion? Well, Bob decided that it was about time Cullman had some diversity, and he'd rather it be ‘a colored man he can trust,' so he's going to run a joint campaign with him running for sheriff and my dad running for county commissioner.”