The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (7 page)

“We need to have another meeting?” Pa said when he got out of the truck. Short-Guy nodded. Pa turned to me. “Go ahead and unload the groceries.”

Him and them other fellas went into the living room and I started carrying in all the bags from the truck. Sora sat in the kitchen and watched me put everything away.

“Dang, why'd we get so much tuna?” I asked. We must have bought eighteen cans. And they weighed a ton. Oh well, it was getting my muscles bigger, I guess.

“I've been craving tuna,” she said. “And macaroni.”

I put all them cans on the shelf, then Willie's voice in my head slapped me across the face and I turned to look at her.

“Wait, I thought you said you didn't have no feelings about macaroni.”

She blinked a few times like she was thinking real hard.

“I didn't. But the baby did, and when you mentioned it, I knew what it was it wanted.”

I wasn't sure if that made sense or not, 'cause I wasn't no doctor, so I let it slip on by. I'd ask Willie about it later.

I just about got all the groceries onto the shelf when Pa called me into the living room. He pointed next to him on the couch.

“I really think this is a bad idea,” Short-Guy said.

“I don't care,” Pa said. “This involves him. And I ain't going to hide things from him again. I think we all can say that was a bad idea last time.”

My stomach started knotting up again.

“What y'all talking about?” I asked. “You in trouble again?”

They all laughed, but not like they thought it was funny, but like you do when you ask a fella that just got bit by a bear if it hurt. Like you do when you just heard the biggest understatement of the year. And my stomach turned into a double square knot.

“I need you to go to a meeting with me tomorrow,” Mr. Thomassen said. I waited for him to explain, but he didn't do it.

“When? After school?”

“Actually, I'm going to pull you out of school for it. We have to meet someone in Birmingham.”

My mouth was going dry. I looked over at Short-Guy. As usual, his face didn't give me no answers.

“What's going on?”

Pa put his arm around me and I felt a little better.

“You know how we've been doing some stuff as the Three Caballeros?” he asked.

Mr. Thomassen stopped him.

“I think it would be better for him to find out at the meeting,” he said.

Pa didn't look too happy about that, but he was a military man, so he nodded and shut up.

“No worries,” Carlos said. “Everything is under control.”

My mouth was even more dry. Like I'd tried to eat a Sahara pizza or something.

“Can I go get a glass of water?” I asked.

“Sure,” Mr. Thomassen said. “Provided you'll go to the meeting with me.”

I nodded and headed into the kitchen. Sora wasn't in there, but I reckoned she went upstairs to her room or something. I grabbed me a glass and tried to think about something besides the fact that my stomach was tearing apart. I looked over at the shelf of groceries and started counting things, just for the heck of it.

I got to the tuna and only counted twelve cans. I went over and moved some things around, but I couldn't find hide nor hair of the other six cans we'd bought.

I heard the front door slam and them fellas drive away. Pa came in and gave me a big hug.

“I'm sorry I can't tell you anything more,” he said. “I want to, but I got to trust the men that know better than me about these things.”

Them tuna cans had successfully taken my mind off everything else completely.

“How many cans of tuna'd we buy?” I asked, and pulled out of his hug.

He blinked a couple of times.

“I don't know, eighteen maybe?”

“There's only twelve.”

“Oh, then maybe we only bought twelve.”

I looked around at the bags of groceries.

“I think we're short a bag, too.”

He went and opened the fridge to get himself a Coke.

“Well, we can probably go get it from Sam tomorrow. He's real good about keeping track of those sorts of things.”

“No, I mean we brought the bag here, but now it's gone.”

He popped the cap off his bottle and took a sip.

“What are you trying to say? Somebody came in here and stole our tuna?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe Sora took off with it.”

“Johnny,” he said.

“Look, Sam was just telling the sheriff that somebody stole some groceries from him this morning. And now we done had some of ours go missing.”

“And you think Sora stole from Sam, too?”

Okay, that sounded stupid.

“No, I ain't saying that, I'm just saying it's a strange turn of events.”

He put down his Coke and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Everything's going to be okay,” he said. “You don't need to worry about this meeting.”

Of course that's what he thought it was about. 'Cause it would make perfect sense that I was taking my fears about a meeting with Mr. Thomassen and some stranger and taking it out on our groceries.

But I wasn't. I was ate up over tuna. And over Willie's voice that was yelling in my head. And over Sora.

And maybe over that meeting, sure.

Definitely over the meeting.

My stomach went back to its square knot.

I
t was a little before lunchtime and me and Mr. Thomassen was sitting in front of the big window at Nicole's Diner, which was just on the outskirts of Birmingham. We could see the railroad tracks from where we was, and the train coming through a tunnel that was made for it in the side of a hill. It was real pleasant, almost like looking at a painting or something. Except that I was jittery and nervous and not sure what to do with my hands at all. So it was exactly like looking at a painting.

Mr. Thomassen was sipping on some coffee and looking over the menu and I was halfway through my fourth Coke. And we'd only been there for fifteen minutes.

“So, when is this fella going to get here?” I asked.

“He'll get here when he gets here,” he said. That was a waste of a conversation.

“And you ain't going to tell me even a smidgen of something to prepare me for this here meeting? What if I slip up and say something stupid?”

He tried to hide a smile.

“I have a feeling my chances are better the less you know,” he said. “There's not very many stupid things you could say right now that would make this whole thing go south.”

Didn't make me feel no better. I looked around the room and tried to find something that would make me feel less like I was about to nose-dive into the Grand Canyon.

“What'cha think about that wall they built in Berlin?” I asked after I spied a headline. Apparently the Soviets was building a wall and separating Berlin, Germany, into two sides, one that would be for us folk to visit and the other that was just for the Commies. And they did it without warning nobody, so there was whole families that was separated, kids from their parents, brothers from their sisters. Maybe forever.

“It makes sense,” he said. “It's almost impossible to coexist with your enemy. Especially when they'd very much like to see you dead.”

I nodded. That rang true with history, for sure. Which reminded me.

“Hey, did you know today is the day the Germans beat up the Russians during World War One? It was the Battle of Tannenberg, see, and they was—”

“Oh look, they're here,” he said, and I forgot all about the Germans.

I could see through the window three black LeSabres with Florida license plates pull into the lot and park. Then a whole mess of fellas in suits, most of them built like battleships, got out and came into the diner. They spied where we was sitting, then they went around and talked to the other folk that was sitting at other tables. Then those folks all cleared out of the diner real quick. Finally it was just me and Mr. Thomassen. And he never stopped sipping his coffee.

Then a white Rolls-Royce with maroon fenders came rolling in, the nicest dadgum car I'd ever seen. It had Florida plates too. It parked, the driver got out and opened up the back door, and an older fella wearing a white suit got out and came into the diner. I couldn't help but stare at him, with his thinning gray hair and his tinted glasses that brought out the dark moles that was scattered along his cheeks and neck. He spoke to a couple of them big fellas, they nodded, and then he came to our table.

“I thought we were going to meet alone,” he said to Mr. Thomassen. His voice sounded like somebody that had smoked one too many cigars. He smelled like it too.

Mr. Thomassen put down the menu.

“I couldn't find a babysitter,” he said. “But he's my understudy. There's nothing you could say to me that he can't hear, or that he won't hear later. So let's talk.”

He motioned for me to move around next to him, so I did, and then the old fella took my seat. I hurried and grabbed my Coke to make sure he didn't get no ideas.

“What's his name?” he asked Mr. Thomassen.

“This is Johnny, and that's all you need to know.”

The fella nodded at me.

“I hope you're as honest as he says, Johnny,” he said. “For your own sake.”

Now, I ain't so sure how they do things in Florida where that fella was from, but in Alabama you don't get a name from somebody without giving one back. I reckoned he forgot.

“I didn't catch your name, mister,” I said.

He chuckled.

“Cute kid,” he said.

“This is Santo. Santo Trafficante, Jr.,” Mr. Thomassen said.

“And me and your boss here go way back,” Mr. Trafficante said. “How long has it been, Chuck?”

I looked at Mr. Thomassen.

“Chuck?” I asked.

“That's my name,” he said. “Charles Thomassen. You know that.”

Nope, I sure didn't. I didn't reckon I was going to take part in calling him Chuck, either. Just didn't sit right with me.

“Anyway,” Mr. Thomassen said, “it's been a long time. Since my first year in Havana, if I remember correctly.”

I looked at Mr. Trafficante.

“You was in Havana?”

That set him to laughing.

“Kid, I practically ran Havana back in the good old days.”

I had a bad feeling I knew what that meant. Back before Castro ousted Batista as the leader of Cuba, Havana was like a compost pile for the mob and gangs. Which meant, if Trafficante ran it all, then he was definitely bad news. I decided to keep my trap shut.

“And what are you up to now?” Mr. Thomassen said.

“Cigars,” Mr. Trafficante said, real fast. “And other side businesses. But cigars is what I pay taxes on. Anyway, this isn't meant to be a social visit. Let's get down to—”

“And your family?” Mr. Thomassen acted like he hadn't heard that last part. “How's your son? And Nell? Why, I haven't heard from her in years.”

Mr. Trafficante gritted his teeth.

“My son is gone and Nell is dead. I thought you knew that.”

“I did,” Mr. Thomassen said before he took a sip of his coffee. “I just wanted Johnny to be caught up to speed.”

Mr. Trafficante stared at him and his eye twitched a little, which was really weird and made me stare, which made him stare back, which made me feel like I was going to pee my pants.

“Can we start talking business now?” he asked.

I raised my hand. Him and Mr. Thomassen both looked at me like I was crazy.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I asked.

Mr. Thomassen glanced at Mr. Trafficante.

“The kid's got to take a leak,” Mr. Trafficante said. “So let him.”

I got up and headed to where the restrooms was and one of them big fellas followed me, even came inside with me.

I went over and unzipped, then realized he was standing right behind me.

“You don't got to watch me. I won't make no messes,” I said.

“I'm just making sure there's no funny business.”

“I try to avoid being funny when I'm peeing. Otherwise the walls get all messed up.”

He laughed but didn't move an inch.

I got done with my business and flushed. I started toward the door but he stopped me.

“Wash your hands, you animal,” he said.

“Why? I didn't pee on them.”

He curled up his lip and grabbed my wrists. He pulled me over to the sink and squirted some soap into my palms. He rubbed my hands together and whistled through the ABCs, then he turned on the water and rinsed them off. He picked up the towel, dried my hands, and used the towel to turn the doorknob.

I went on ahead of him back to the table. Things had gotten more heated since I left.

“Don't try to tell me you don't know anything about the Three Caballeros,” Mr. Trafficante said. “It has your fingerprints all over it.”

Mr. Thomassen wasn't drinking his coffee anymore. Instead he had both hands on the table, more tense than I'd ever seen him.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “And more than that, I don't know why you're concerned. Based off what you've told me, they're only targeting the Cosa Nostra. Which, last time I checked, didn't include the Trafficante family.”

Mr. Trafficante popped his knuckles as I took my seat back next to Mr. Thomassen.

“No,” he said, and shot me a look. “But it does include the Bonannos and the Giancanas, and they've started to complain.”

“To you?” Mr. Thomassen said. “Why would they come to you?”

“Because, you idiot, they recognize a Cuban operation when they see one.” He leaned in over the table. “And I recognize one of yours when I see it, too.”

I looked at Mr. Thomassen to see if he was scared. I'd be scared, that was for darn sure. But he didn't look an ounce nervous at all. Instead he reached for his coffee cup.