The Temptations of St. Frank (26 page)

“Mr. Brown,” the receptionist said, “this young man has been waiting for you. He says he has a big scoop.” She peered at him over her cat-eye glasses.

Mr. Brown sized Frank up. He did not look like a friendly person, but in Frank's experience, black men rarely looked friendly around white people, at least not on first meeting. Frank wished he had taken off his St. A's blazer. He didn't want Brown to think of him as some privileged white kid from the suburbs.

“So what's the story?” the reporter said, not bothering to say hello.

“My name is Frank Grimaldi.” Frank held out his hand. He was determined to start off on the right foot and not let the usual racial bullshit get in the way.

Brown stared at Frank's hand for a moment before he shook it. He had unusually long slender fingers. “Arthur Brown,” he said. “So what's your story?” He seemed impatient, as if he had to be somewhere.

Frank glanced at the receptionist. He'd pegged her as a devout Catholic from her dark Italian looks and the gold cross around her neck, and he didn't think it would be wise to start talking about the Church being in bed with the Mafia in front of her. “Can we talk somewhere else?”

Arthur Brown looked annoyed. “Look, man, I cover fires in the ghetto, and when I'm not doing that, they have me writing obituaries. If it ain't a fire or a dead person, your story means nothing to me.”

Frank lowered his voice. “This is a fire. The burning landfill in the Ukrainian section of Jersey City? The one you wrote about?”

Brown tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. He seemed curious. “What about it?”

“I know some stuff about it,” Frank said. “Stuff the paper should be covering. Hang on.” He unzipped his bookbag and pulled out one of the photos Molloy had taken of the unholy trio. “You know who these guys are?”

Brown took a look at it. “That's Mayor Palmeri. And isn't that that mob guy?”

Frank pointed with his eyes at the receptionist. She had stopped typing and was writing something on a pad. “Can we go someplace… you know.”

The reporter sized him up again, then looked at the photo. “Let's take a walk.”

Frank followed him through the lobby and out the front door. They walked together in silence along the busy downtown Newark sidewalk, office workers hurrying home, nearly bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling in both directions on Market Street. When they came to a narrow alley, Brown pointed that they should go that way. It was suddenly quieter there, but a pair of greasy dumpsters gave off a rotten, vinegary stench. The only other person Frank could see in the alley was a bum on a doorstep with a bottle of Boone's Farm apple wine dangling precariously from his fingertips.

Brown stopped near a back door with a sign for All-Safe Locksmiths. “Okay, so tell me about landfill.”

Frank had been rehearsing what he would say all day, but he had imagined he'd be talking to an older guy—a white guy—in his office in the building. Out on the street with a young guy not much older than himself who probably didn't have a whole lot of seniority at the paper made Frank hesitant.

“Hey, I got stuff to do, man,” Brown said. “You gonna tell me or not?”

Frank took the photo from his hand and pointed at John Trombetta. “The mob guy? His name is John Trombetta. He's a boss.” Frank moved his finger to Monsignor Fitzgerald. “This is the headmaster of my school. St. Anselm's Prep. They're talking about the landfill, about the fire and the toxic smoke that gets into the air. The landfill is owned by the mob and the Church. They each have a piece. People in that neighborhood have been getting sick and dying from that smoke. But they won't clean it up. They don't want do anything about it. That's what they're talking about here. I have it on tape. My buddy secretly recorded them.”

Brown just looked at him. “Okay. And?”

“And what?”

“That's your big story?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

Brown gave him a withering look. “I know all this. A lot of people know this. It's not news.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. It's no secret the mob and the Pope own that landfill.”

“Then why hasn't there been a big expose in the paper?”

“What's there to write? The real ownership is covered up with front companies, so there's no proof of who really owns it. Sure, people complain about the smoke all the time, but the landfill never gets cited by the authorities. The city and the state must be getting their taste on this one because they never go after these guys. What you're giving me is not news.”

Frank felt as if he'd been mule-kicked in the stomach.

Brown shook his head and picked a cigarette out of a pack of Kools. “I thought you were gonna tell me about bodies buried over there. Mob rub-outs. St. Valentine's Day Massacre shit. That I could write about.”

“But people are dying from that toxic crap.”

Brown laughed as he lit his cigarette. “This is New Jersey, man. Everybody's dying from some kind of shit.”

“But what about the tape? We have them on tape talking about it, Trombetta refusing to do anything to put the fire out.”

“You wanna go to jail, man? Taping people when they don't know you're taping them is against the law. Only the government gets away with that kind of shit.”

“But don't you even want to hear it?”

“And be an accessory to a dumb-ass crime? No thank you.”

“But—“

“Don't waste your breath. I cannot do anything with this. There is nothing newsworthy here. There's no story in your story.”

“But you don't get it. If you expose these people, the government will
make
them put out the fire. Lives will be saved. Isn't that newsworthy?”

Smoke spouted out of Brown's nostrils. “
You
don't get it. There ain't no quid pro fuckin' quo in real life. You think the sheriff's gonna ride in and clean up Dodge? No fucking way. This is New Jersey, man. Everybody's crooked.”

Frank didn't know what else to say that would convince him. He stared down at the photo in his hand, feeling hopeless. The landfill scumbags would never be exposed. The fire would keep burning. People would keep getting sick and dying from it. He'd never save the day. And Yolanda wouldn't give a shit about him. Why would she now that she had valedictorian Vaz?

“Hey, look, man, I don't mean to pop your bubble,” Brown said. “You mean well, but that ain't enough. It's complicated. Black people got fed up with the bullshit and they burned down the ghetto. And what'd that get us? Nothing.”

Frank shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I'm just a little fish on this paper. A black man in a white company just trying to keep his job.” He pointed to the photo. “These landfill people are very well-connected. Sure as shit, my boss would kill a story like this if a reporter brought it to him.”

“Yeah, okay.” Frank heaved a deep sigh. “Thanks for talking to me.” He started to walk back toward Market Street.

Brown walked back with him. “I can't change the world and neither can you, man. I know where you're coming from, but that all-you-need-is-love bullshit is nothing more than that—bullshit. The only people who want change are the people who can't change nothing. And the people who got the power to change things, don't want it. That's just the way it is, man.”

Frank didn't answer because he refused to believe that. Arthur Brown with his toned-down ‘fro looked like he might have run with the Black Panthers once upon a time, but willingly or not, he had bought into the establishment party line.

“Yeah, I get it,” Frank said, picking up his pace. He just wanted to get away from this guy.

The bum with the Boone's Farm bottle called out to them. “'Scuse me, sirs, ‘scuse me. Could you possibly see it in your heart to spare a cigarette for man down on his luck?”

Frank looked at Arthur Brown who was taking a drag off his butt. “Ask him,” Frank said, stepping quickly and blending in with the flow of pedestrians on Market Street.

She and Frank stood in the middle of her room face-to-face, her with her arms around his neck, him holding his own wrist at the small of her back, slow dancing to the Dave Clark Five's “It's Just Because.” Or more precisely,
practicing
to dance. This was her idea. The prom was next week, and she wanted to make sure they looked good on the dance floor. To him the prom was no big deal. Just another high school dance but with food and better clothes. But to Annette, it was something special. Everything had to be perfect—her dress, her flowers, his dancing, the after-prom activities. It was like planning a goddamn wedding.

They swayed to the music like a couple of bears. He moved minimally, being very careful not to step on her feet, which he hadn't done yet. Her hair was on his cheek, and it smelled good. He was dying to grab her ass, and he had a feeling she wouldn't object if he did. But feeling her ass would lead to getting lateral on her bed and making out. And that could lead to something else. But if that happened, he'd never achieve his ultimate goal—getting into that file cabinet in her father's office. But if he couldn't get into the office, he wouldn't mind getting lateral. This might be his big chance to finally G.L., get laid.

Every time they circled around and he got a glimpse of her bed through the strands of her hair, his dick got a little harder, like a prisoner being stretched another inch on the rack. He wanted her so bad, and he just might get to home base if he put the moves on her, but what about the people dying in Yolanda's neighborhood? How could he live with himself if turned his back on them just so he could get his rocks off?

Still… When would he get this close with a girl again? After the prom? That was supposedly when everybody did the deed, but he wondered if that was really just a myth. What were the percentages of success? How many guys just bragged that they'd gotten some tail after the prom when in fact they'd barely gotten a good-night kiss?

The famous Dave Clark Five organ solo came out of the speakers on Annette's Panasonic portable stereo. The album spun ‘round and ‘round on the turntable, and he took in the room as they did the slow bear dance ‘round and ‘round her room. Four sitting dolls with frilly little-girl dresses and painted porcelain faces sat on a short shelf over the bed. Annette had told him that her father had bought them for her, that they were from Germany and cost a lot of money. Frank didn't care how much they cost. They were creepy,
Twilight Zone
creepy.

Her desk was painted creamy white with gold accents and looked like something Marie Antoinette would have had. He noticed that there weren't any books or homework on it. Annette wasn't much of a scholar.

A flimsy leopard-print robe hung from a hook behind the door. The top of her white dresser, which matched the desk and the headboard of the bed, was cluttered with makeup and creams and crap. Two new posters were tacked to the rose-colored wall—Bobby Goldsboro and Davey Jones of the Monkees. A plush white leather armchair sat in the corner near a window with ridiculously frilly curtains, a pile of magazines on the floor next to it.
Tiger Beat
was on top of the stack. Her tastes in music and reading made him want to stick his finger down his throat. But her hair smelled good and he loved her Nancy Sinatra flip, and now, as they kept dancing, he could see the bed again.

“So where is everybody?” he said into her hair.

“Like who?” she said into his chest. She clearly didn't want to disengage from the bear grip, which made him even hornier. She wanted him, he thought. He was pretty sure she did.

“Are your parents home? I'm just wondering.” He didn't want to be too obvious.

“My Mom's around somewhere. My Dad is out of town.”

Frank hadn't seen anyone else in the house when he'd arrived earlier that afternoon. His father had let him borrow the car, knowing that he was going to the Trombettas' house. His father approved of Frank going out with Annette. His mother would have preferred someone else's daughter, but she was happy that he was going to the prom.

The song ended, needle hiss briefly coming out of the speakers, then “Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying” started. Another slow song. It was a Dave Clark Five greatest hits album. They just kept dancing without stopping. His hands felt clammy, and his skin was hot around his shoulders where she was hugging him.

“How about Johnny?” he asked. “Is he around?” Frank figured it was about five-thirty. If her brother wasn't home from school, he'd be coming home soon.

“He's at your friend Dom's house,” she said. “Playing music.”

A lightning bolt of jealousy shot through Frank. Dom and Johnny were making plans to start a group, the group that Frank and Dom had been planning all year. But they hadn't invited Frank to join them, and now there was no chance they would. Dom was still pissed at him because of Annette. For once Frank had a girl Dom couldn't get.

Frank was thinking hard. His penis was really hard. He was trying to figure out how to put the moves on Annette
and
get into her father's office, too. Her father was out of town, and Johnny was miles away at Dom's house. It was too late for his own father to stop by to mow the lawn, which had concerned him when he first came over after school even though it was Wednesday and his father never did the Trombettas' house in the middle of the week. He always came on Friday or Saturday depending on when Mrs. Trombetta was entertaining that weekend. So the only wild card was Annette's mother. She was in the house, and Frank didn't want her walking in on them with his hands all over her daughter and maybe—just maybe—his dick sliding into home plate.

“So where did you say your mother is?”

Annette took her face out of his chest and grinned up at him. “She's lying down in bed. She said she had a migraine and that I shouldn't bother her.”

Bingo! When his mother said she had a headache, she holed up in her bedroom for eight, ten, twelve hours at a stretch. And that was just a plain old headache. With a migraine, Mrs. Trombetta might be out of commission for the night.

They kept swaying to the music, Frank thinking that he just might be able to pull this off. If she was in the mood. And so far he hadn't been with her when she wasn't in the mood.

The song ended, and Frank was pretty sure that the next one would be another slow-dance ballad. The needle dragged over the space between songs with hissing silence. They stopped swaying. Frank pulled away just enough to look her in the eye. She was already looking at him, grinning. Her lips were right there, inches away. He licked his lips and swallowed, working up a little moisture. He bent his knees to get closer, his lips hovering over hers. This was going to be fucking romantic, he thought.

But then the next song came on and it wasn't a ballad. It was “Glad All Over.” A hard-driving rocker. Frank remembered seeing the band on TV on
Shindig.
Dave Clark, the leader and drummer, kept his seat so high it looked like he was standing up when he played, and he beat the shit out of his drums on that song. Well, so what? Frank thought. Who needs mood music?

Their lips collided like the
Titanic
and the iceberg, just lips at first, but soon tongues. He tilted his head to the side and improved their position, probing deeper and slower. Soul-kissing. He pulled her closer, his hands on her ass. One hand wandered under her sweater and felt smooth bare skin, searching till it found her bra strap. He thought about reaching around and going for a tit but held himself back. He didn't want to be too grabby and turn her off. He wanted some indication that she was okay with this before he went there. The way he figured, girls held all the cards in these situations. They were the sexual traffic cops, telling the boy when he could go and when had to stop. If the guy didn't obey the signals, he'd be breaking the law, risking a suspension of his driving privileges. Sure, a lot of guys disregarded the signals and did whatever the hell they wanted, but how far did they really get doing it that way? The girl could shut him down completely if he got out of control. Take away his license. Unless he was totally wacko, which made him a rapist. That was different.

Frank frowned through the kiss and scrunched his eyebrows together. Why the hell was he thinking this? He was always thinking too much. He was here, now, with a girl. Pay attention! He reached into her pants and ran his hand over the curve of her ass to get himself back on track, annoyed with himself for letting his mind get in the way.

He ground his lips into hers and moved his head around the way he'd seen it done in the movies, even got his fingers into her hair and palmed her head.

The song ended, and it was only the skip of the needle when it reached the end of the record that caught his attention. He'd gotten so caught up in making out, he'd stopped hearing the music. They might have been kissing for a couple of minutes or maybe the arm of record player automatically went back to the first cut and they'd been making out for the entire side of the album. He couldn't say for sure.

He pulled away and looked at her. Her eyes all gooey looking at him.

“You're a really good kisser,” she said in a low whisper.

“Yeah?” He liked the compliment, but then something occurred to him. Guys never tells girls they're good kissers. As far as the average guy is concerned, any girl who's halfway descent- looking is a good kisser. Maybe guys weren't as particular as girls.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“You have a funny look on your face.”

“I was just thinking. Why is it that girls are always the ones who get to say who the good kisser is? Guys never say that.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Never thought of it.” Not that I've had that many opportunities, he thought.

“So think of it now,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Am
I
a good kisser? Tell me.”

“Well, yeah. Sure.” In truth he'd never thought that kissing required qualitative analysis. If he was lucky enough to get to the point where he was kissing a girl, then it was automatically good.

She tugged on his neck and in no time they were at it again, lips locked, his thigh between hers. God, he was horny, and by all indications so was she. His head was in a delicious haze. Fuck the file cabinet, he thought.

But what about all those people getting sick from the landfill? How could he ignore them? How could getting his rocks off compare with saving lives, lots of lives?

But what could he do? he thought. Arthur Brown, that reporter from the
Herald,
had shot him down, said the landfill story wasn't worth writing. Even if Frank found something incriminating in Mr. Trombetta's files, what could he do with it? Who could he show it to who would do something with it? Mike Wallace at
60 Minutes?
Not likely. He was a kid for chrissake—who would listen to him?

Shit! Fuck! Piss! he thought as he tongue-wrestled with Annette. He was thinking again! He was rock hard in his pants, but he was still thinking. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just shut his brain off and fuck her? Other guys didn't have this problem, did they? Shit!

He kissed and thought and kissed and rubbed up against her and kissed and thought and rubbed, his dick nudging her toward the bed, but his brain tiptoeing out into the hallway, thinking about getting into Mr. Trombetta's office, getting into the file cabinet. The big brain and the little brain were locked in a tug of war. They were going to tear him in half like a piece of paper.

FUCK! he thought.

She pulled away from him. Her lids were half-closed, her sly teasing grin a sickle moon. She was thinking about it. It. The big IT. Unlike him, she wasn't thinking about anything else.

“Hey,” she said in a smoky voice. “I gotta pee first.” Her eyes rolled toward the empty Pepsi cans on the night table.

It took him a second to process this. He wasn't expecting this level of intimacy.

“It'll just take a second,” she said. She pulled herself away from him and headed for the bathroom in her room, raising her index finger to indicate that she'd be right back.

“Me too,” he blurted. It was his brain talking. “I'll go downstairs.”

“Use the one in Johnny's room,” she said. “It's closer.”

And it's right across the hall from your father's office, he thought. If he was quick, he could do it. If the key to the cabinet was in the top drawer of the desk where he suspected it would be, he could get into the cabinet, rifle through the files, and if was lucky, he might find something. Just look for legal documents, like deeds, or anything that mentioned property in Jersey City. It would take him more than a minute, but what was Annette gonna do? Question him for taking so long? He didn't have to go at all, but he could tell her he'd thought he had to do #1 and it turned out he had to do #2. If she asked. And she would never ask.

Her bathroom door closed, and he rushed out into the hallway, making a beeline for Mr. Trombetta's office, passing several small oil paintings of flowers and fruit. On the right, the office door was closed. On the left the door to Johnny's room was open. Frank peeked in and saw the bathroom—the toilet, the sink, the tub. Frank went toward the office door, reaching out for the knob.

“That was nice. You're not half bad.”

Frank's eyes shot open. He knew that voice. It was Mrs. Trombetta, and it was coming from the end of the hallway. From the Trombettas' bedroom. Frank heard a lower voice answering her. A man. He was mumbling, and Frank couldn't make out the words.

Frank froze. Shit! Mr. Trombetta's home! Fuck!

But then he heard the man's voice again, and even though he still couldn't make out the words, it didn't sound like Mr. Trombetta. His voice was low but sharp, his delivery all stabs and jabs. This voice was a little more relaxed and hoarse.