Fools Paradise (19 page)

“How smart do you think you are?” Bobby Junior said in his meanest voice, leaning over. Bobbyjay held really still, not trusting himself to hold back if Dad hit him again. “You smarter than this?” Dad held up the fist. “Are you my son or ain't you?”

Bobbyjay felt his jaw and said nothing.
This is to protect the old man from humiliation,
he thought.
This is to keep my place in the family.

And then he thought,
I'm sick of this.

Not a good moment for epiphany.

“Fuckin' Bobbert is a better son to me,” Bobby Junior muttered. He stood up and swayed. Bobbyjay prayed he would be satisfied now. “Traitor,” his father said, and kicked Bobbyjay on the sole of his sneaker. He swayed away and threw an arm over Bobbert. “'S get out of this hole, it stinks in here.”

Bobbyjay waited until they were out the door. Then he let Jack Yu help him to his feet.

Who else can I be if not a Morton?
he thought as he paid Bobby Junior's abandoned bar bill.
I'm not ready to take a road job and leave town for ten years or so, until the old man settles down or retires.

What the hell else can I do?

Bobbyjay wasn't surprised to be summoned to his grandfather's house next evening after work. He was distressed to see his father's and his cousin's cars in the driveway.
This won't be pleasant.

It wasn't. He walked into the basement den in the middle of a chewing-out. Bobby Senior was giving his first-born son hell.

“You may have cost me this election! How the hell do you expect me to cover your ass and get you the good jobs if you fuck up my re-election?”

“He started it, Pop,” Bobbyjay's Dad whined as if he was sixteen.

“You are the father. I expect you to have some sense.”

“Don't the kid take no responsibility here?” Bobby Junior grumbled.

“He does,” Bobby Senior said, waving Bobbyjay into the room with a big toothy grin. “This time you saved it by takin' a punch, kid. That was smart. That was the right thing to do.”

“Bull!” Bobbert said. He was getting bolder these days with all of Bobby Junior's support.

“Shaddap,” Bobby Senior said. “I'll tell you what's bull. It's boobytrapping somebody and getting caught. Bobbyjay did all the thinkin' for everybody last night.”

Bobbyjay was utterly ashamed to realize that he warmed to his grandfather's praise.

So that's how he gets me to do it.

His heart in his mouth, he said, “Sir, with all due respect, I may not remember to do that if it happens again.”
These people don't consider anyone but themselves. Somebody has to consider Daisy.

“You punk!” his father burst out, and subsided at a glare from the old man.

And, Bobbyjay admitted to himself, he was sick of taking care of people by taking punches—hard fists or hard words.
If I'm gonna go down in flames making a stand, this might as well be the moment.
Feeling like he was committing suicide, he said, “My fist might forget. I'm very impulsive. I might be stupid enough to throw a punch back next time.”

He met his father's glare and felt himself go white and cold. The old man could let the Dad and Bobbert work him over right here. Nobody would stop them.

“I can clean your clock any day of the week,” his father said, though he had to look up into Bobbyjay's face to say it.

“You two behave yourselves. The three of yez, and Bobbert, this means you. I ain't losing this election because of you morons.” Bobby Senior slurped at his Old Style. When he spoke again his color had cooled. “Why I called you three, we got to go in to the office this aftanoon and see Pete.”

Bobbyjay's belly tightened.

“Pete Packard?” Bobbert squeaked.

“What does he want?” Bobby Junior asked heavily.

“He wants to tell you the same thing I just told you, only he don't actually give a shit about who wins the election. Now, here's what you're gonna say.”

But it turned out Bobbyjay was not to visit Pete Packard's office with his relatives.

He was summoned an hour earlier, with Daisy.

Not a good sign, Bobbyjay felt.

Packard stationed the two of them in the middle of the office and walked around them, his big gnarly hands clasped behind his back and his dead cigar jutting out from between his back teeth.

Daisy edged a little closer to Bobbyjay's side. “Does it hurt?” she whispered when the great man's silence had lasted a full minute.

Bobbyjay patted her briefly. When the bitching out began, he wanted to have his hands free. Pete hadn't socked a errant stagehand in almost twenty years, but the way he looked today he might be thinking about it.

“I dunno about you two,” Packard said at last. “Marty Dit says you're not really engaged. Hard to believe he'd let you do something like this if you wasn't.” Pete Packard stopped in front of them and took his cigar out of his mouth. “But you've sure made a shitload of trouble.”

Daisy started to say something. Bobbyjay squeezed her hand.

He met Pete's eye and tried to look thick and low-energy.

“Well?” Pete barked. “What's the big idea?”

Bobbyjay swallowed. “Well, we're engaged.”

“And?” Pete waited.

Daisy spoke up. “His family treats him like dirt. I'd—I'll treat him better than that.”

Pete leaned closer to her. “Yeah,” he whispered, “but first? He's gotta live long enough to get married.” Pete straightened. “You're creatin' a situation here in my Local. Situations are noisy. The noise gets to New York, the International is gonna want to know what we do here to embarrass the union.”

“We just want to keep the peace,” Daisy said, in spite of Bobbyjay's frantic squeeze on her hand.

“Maybe you should quit tryin' so f—so hard,” Pete said, beginning on a roar and then softening. “Look, I don't wanna be a killjoy. So Bobbyjay is finally gettin' laid, that's so beautiful I could shit,” he said brutally and both Daisy and Bobbyjay winced. He looked at Daisy. “I can't refuse you work. But I can't bump some senior journeyman just so's I can stick you in some nice safe little corner of town.”

“We're not asking for favors, sir,” Bobbyjay began, but Pete rounded on him with a look.

“I'm not sayin' Marty Dit ain't an annoying sonofabitch, because he is. But if you got any pull with your family, now's the time to use it. I heard,” Pete said and raised a palm, as if Bobbyjay would have dreamed of interrupting. “I heard Tony Dit roadcased that dumbfuck Bobbert the other day.”

“Sir, that was a joke between me and Bobbert—” Bobbyjay began.

“Save it. So there's faults on both sides. All I'm sayin', you two could be helping, not hurting. Because if shit starts flyin' out of the International all the way to Chicago, it's gonna fall on the innocent and the guilty, know what I mean?”

Bobbyjay swallowed. “Sir.”

“I'm talkin' to you two like you have some sense. Make me right. That means if anything else happens, I'm holdin' you responsible.” Pete waved his hand.

His heart pounding, Bobbyjay pulled Daisy out of the room.

They ran spang into Bobbyjay's relatives in the outer office.

“Well, look who's changed sides,” Bobby Junior said, stuffing his right hand in his denim jacket pocket, not before Bobbyjay saw the brace-and-bandage on it. He tried not to feel smug that it had hurt Dad worse to hit him than it'd hurt to be hit.

Daisy must have spotted the bandage. “He has a really hard head,” she said to his Dad. “I keep trying to seduce him to the Ditorelli side of the force, but it's no go. So far.”

She smiled at each Morton in turn.

The Morton men exchanged glances. Bobby Senior looked at her as if she were a cockroach in his beer.

“He never does anything I tell him to,” Dad said.

Thanks, Dad. Sticking up for me to your sworn enemy. Now I know where I stand.

Daisy smiled. Bobbyjay cringed, waiting for her comeback. She whispered, “Maybe you don't ask nice enough.” She looped her arm through Bobbyjay's and dragged him out.

“Man, don't provoke 'em, Daisy.”

“I'm sticking up for you, ya big lug!” she hissed. Trust a man to boss her every chance he got.

“Well, don't. C'mon, let's grab some lunch while we still have time.” He towed her toward the elevator.

Daisy set her jaw. “I hate the way they talk to you.” Inside the gold elevator he looked noble and handsome and thick as a brick. “I'm supposed to be engaged to you for a reason.”

“Yeah?” He did a double take. She saw the wheels start to turn inside Mount Bobbyjay-Brain. “What reason is that?”

You stick up for me to your horrible family. You take a punch because of me. You stick up for me with my family. You get me the job of my dreams and you introduce me to cool people like Liz Ryback.
“I'm working on it.”

He ducked his head. “That's what I thought.” He turned pinker. “You can't think of a reason.”

“Bobbyjay—” She reached for his hand. “I can think of a lot of reasons to be engaged to you.”

“I get you work,” he suggested.

“More than that.” she said recklessly. He faced her. He suddenly seemed much bigger.
He's in love with me,
she remembered. She licked her lips. “You're so kind.”

He seemed to deflate.

“That's a big deal to me,” she rushed out. “You've seen my family. Even Goomba—he loves me, but his gifts all come with strings, and punishments, and his crazy feuds and his power trips. You're so kind to me.” Tears filled her eyes.
I'm a hell of an actress.
“I don't get that a lot.” She actually choked up as she added, “Thank you.”

Bobbyjay's pink deepened until she thought he was going to catch on fire. “Buy you a hot dog?” he said huskily.

“Hey, Killer,” a voice said three hours later.

Daisy turned to see Badger walking toward her out of the stage right wings at the Opera House. He made a big point of covering his crotch. “Don't kick, it's just me.” The corners of his eyes crinkled.

Daisy had to smile. “You took that really well.”

Badger moved up close. His familiar smell of cigarettes and whisky and sweaty guy wafted over her. Looking down into her eyes, he said, “Oh, I can be good.”

She remembered how she used to swoon over him when she was a kid.
The old guy still has it.
Her skin warmed up. “You can't blame me,” she said. “How was I supposed to know it was you? You haven't come that close to me since I was thirteen.”

Badger looked mournful. “You're the only nice girl who knows me. I didn't want to ruin it.”

She was touched in spite of herself. “I can't believe you told everybody I kicked you in the nuts.”

“Got to keep the wolves off you. Marty would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

Instantly she was seething inside. “That's Bobbyjay's job,” she said through her teeth. “There's no need for the great Badger Kenack to humble himself for my sake. I'm surprised you didn't come up with payback yet.”

He looked her up and down with that wry, wolfish, knowing smile. She felt thirteen again. “Oh, I'll leave that to the Mortons.”

That chilled her. Did every guy in the Local let some other asshole play bad cop for him? Like Goomba letting those suits hassle her in the cafeteria. This whole conversation smelled like her grandfather.
Goomba lets Tony pinch me all the time,
she thought.

“Careful that doesn't backfire on you, big guy. Bobbyjay rescues me every time.” She narrowed her eyes. “Or else I just rescue myself. That's how a smart guy got kicked in the nuts.”

Badger's expression darkened. “Well, go easy on them. Mortons ain't tough like we are.”

Another dig at Bobbyjay. She was stung, but she thought she had the picture now. “You're only talking to me to make Bobbyjay jealous. You haven't come this close to me since I was a kid,” she repeated.