Whale Season (13 page)

Chapter 20

U
nderneath Dagmar's apartment, in The Dream Café, the music kicks into high gear, shakes the floorboards. It's Sunday. Noon. First show. The first show is always the cheerleader routine, a real crowd pleaser. Izzy and Cocoa cartwheel onto the dance floor.

“Are you ready for teen spirit?” Izzy shouts. Her white cheerleading skirt is high around her head. Her G-string is red. Red and white are the school colors of Dagmar's old school, St. Jude's.

“Ready now!” Cocoa replies. “Let's play! Okay?”

The crowd shouts, “Okay!” A few hoot.

Izzy and Cocoa are perfect. Surly and spankable. Twins. Ice blond. About a year ago, Dagmar “discovered” them at the Waffle House down the road. They were working double shifts to save up for breast reduction surgery. Izzy was the cook. Cocoa, a reluctant waitress.

It was 3
A.M.
and Dagmar was having a very late dinner of pecan waffles and country ham when some drunk loaded the jukebox with a roll of quarters. And that's bad enough at 3
A.M.
, but then he did the unthinkable—he punched the entire left side of buttons. Button after button, the drunk selected every song on the Waffle House play list—all fourteen of them. He punched them once, and then a second time, and then again, until all his quarters were gone.

“That's for you, Cocoa,” he shouted. “So you never forget me.”

Then he stumbled out the door.

Izzy spit, and the Waffle House rhapsody, the bane of all employees, began.

The “rhapsody” is an occupational hazard visited upon all who work for the yellow and white. Every Waffle House has one. It's a smattering of songs written for and about the hash joint. It's corporate policy. Fourteen little jukebox placards, yellow as yolks, must always be on the left-hand side of the jukebox. They're hits never heard on any radio. The styles range from jazz to rock and roll to novelty songs with bad rhymes and insidious hooks. The songs on the list change frequently, but some standards remain like “844,739 Ways to Eat a Hamburger at Waffle House” by Billy Dee Cox, and the rocking “Waffle Doo Wop,” by Eddie Middleton.

They drive the staff slowly insane. Customers play them at great risk.

Three songs in, Izzy jumped across the counter, case cutter in hand, just as “Why Would You Eat Grits Anyplace Else?” by Mary Welch Rogers hit the platter. The rousing homage was a college cheer, a fight song. It was deafening.

“Gimme a ‘G'!” Mary Ann and her cheerleading backup singers shouted.

“G!” Izzy and Cocoa shouted back. Then Izzy cut the jukebox plug with the case cutter, and Cocoa tossed all fourteen of the Waffle House hits out the front door like Frisbees.

The rest is Adult Entertainment History.

Now, as Izzy and Cocoa cheer on the crowd beneath them, Trot and Dagmar pretend not to notice. Trot sits like a giant on Dagmar's soft floral print couch; his knees are nearly up around his ears. His hands are sweaty, folded. Looks like he's in detention. It's his day off, but he's been up early investigating the explosion. Something about it nags him. The timing seems odd, too odd. A quarter of a million dollar rig shows up on Christmas Day at Leon's and then he's burned up in a fire?

Not even Leon can be that unlucky. And Trot's been a cop long enough to know that there's no such thing as coincidence.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he says to Dagmar again.

Dagmar is still standing by the door, unwilling to sit down. She shifts her weight from left to right. “Had to get up anyway.”

Trot looks fresh-pressed. His jeans are ironed with a crease. She imagines him starching them in what probably is a tiny neat apartment, while a tiny loaf of bread is baking in one of those machines.

Don't wait for me anymore, she thinks. Please.

The noon sun sheets in through the blinds like rain.

“Want some coffee?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Don't want to be any trouble. Just wanted to see how you were.”

How she is is still half-asleep and wearing an old football jersey of Leon's that she used to wear when they were still married. It's three sizes too large and touches her knees. Looks as if it's swallowed her whole.

“I could make some coffee,” she says. She's still holding on to the front doorknob. She's poised as if she's waiting for the starting gun to go off, the rabbit to hit the track.

Don't run, she thinks. He's only trying to be nice.

“You should sit down,” he says.

“Coffee is easy,” she says, but doesn't move.

“I'll get it,” Trot gets up. She doesn't protest, has no energy for it. Trot goes into the galley kitchen. Despite its small size, it's steel with granite countertops. There's a new gas range and side-by-side refrigerator with flat-screen TV.

Naked must pay well, he thinks.

“Coffee beans are in the freezer,” she shouts, still standing by the door.

They are. In fact, they're all that's in the freezer. He opens the refrigerator out of curiosity. There's a pint of cream, seven kinds of hot sauce including a XXX habanero, a bowl of eggs that he suspects came from Jimmy Ray's, and a six-pack of Diet Coke.

Trot grinds the beans. Starts the coffee. Then he pulls out a pan and olive oil. He cracks three eggs and mixes in some cream. The noise makes Dagmar curious. She peeks around the corner. “You don't have to do that,” she says.

“I do. I'm hungry. Any garlic?”

“Pantry.”

He chops the fist of garlic as well as any chef Dagmar's seen. It goes into the eggs, and he adds some dried chives. He takes a whisk and beats it into froth. Dagmar likes to watch men cook. It's been a long time since anyone made her breakfast. Makes her feel comfortable. Trot knew it would; that's what he was going for. He wants to make her comfortable so that they can talk. His face is still a little red from where she slapped him last night. Once was enough. But he needs answers.

So when the olive oil sizzles on the pan he says, “Now, don't get sore, but I ran the plates on that RV at Lucky's. Do you know someone named Rose Levi? From New York? Or her husband, Irv? Leon ever mention them?”

“This is an official visit?”

You jerk, she's thinking. He can hear it in her voice.

“Come on, don't be like that.”

But Dagmar is, indeed, going to be like “that.” “So you think Leon swindled this Rose Levi out of the RV?”

“I don't think anything yet. I'm just trying to find out what happened.”

“Ever think that maybe they traded it in?” Dagmar is scowling. “Lucky's is a business. People come in off the street and buy RVs. That's how it's done.”

At Lucky's?

That's what he wants to say, but doesn't. Knows better. Trot can't remember the last time Leon had anything worth buying. He also wants to say that Leon is a gambler—and not a very good one.
Come on, Dagmar, we all know that. He'll do anything for a buck.
But what Trot says is, “I'm sure that's probably what happened. It's just that I have to check up on these things.”

In the frying pan, the eggs set into an omelet. The kitchen is fragrant with them. Trot jiggles the pan, pays attention to the eggs. He can feel Dagmar's anger, doesn't want to meet her eye.

“So what
aren't
you telling me?” she says.

He hesitates, and then says, “A lot.” He shakes the pan a little too hard; the cooked eggs fall away from the sides. “It's an open investigation.”

And it is. And all he has is questions. At 4:30
A.M.
, Trot made a quick check on the Internet and discovered that the American Dream RV is worth more cash than Leon has probably ever seen in his life. But there didn't seem to be any paperwork at the Round-Up about it. Or keys. Trot suspects that Leon had them with him when the explosion occurred. And what about that woman Trot and Carlotta saw Leon talking to at 2
A.M.
? Rose Levi? If so, what would a seventy-eight-year-old nearly blind woman be doing at that hour with Leon? And where was her husband?

The Levis seem to be the key to this case, but no one knows where they are. When Trot called their home number in New York, he was routed to Miami. Nobody answered. So he used a cross directory and called a neighbor back in Cicero. After some convincing, the suspicious Mrs. Edda Miller told him two things of interest.

First, the Levis were going to Florida—“To die,” as Rose apparently told Mrs. Miller—“where everybody else is dying.” Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce motto, but more than accurate. And the second thing Mrs. Miller said was that the Levis had no children.

“Just the two of them. I half expected you to tell me that they did one of those murder-suicide pacts. They were married for sixty-one years. Wouldn't surprise me.”

Nor Trot. But how did Leon fit in? Mrs. Miller didn't have a clue. “This Leon lived in Whale Inlet, you say? Where is Whale Inlet?”

“Harbor,” Trot corrected. “Whale Harbor.”

“Inlet. Harbor. Who cares?”

I do, Trot thought, and thanked Mrs. Miller for her time. He seemed to be getting nowhere fast.

“You hungry?” he asks Dagmar. She nods, seems a little less angry. He turns the perfect omelet onto a plate, and the coffeemaker beeps. Dagmar serves the coffee. Trot divides the eggs. The moment has turned comfortable again, domestic. He sits down and takes off his baseball cap. He is waiting for Dagmar to pick up her fork, so that they can eat.

Manners, she thinks. His mother trained him well.

Dagmar takes the XXX habanero sauce from the refrigerator and splashes it on her plate until the egg looks as if it's been bludgeoned. Trot's eyes are watering from the fumes.

She shakes the bottle at him. “What some?”

“No thanks,” he coughs. “Makes my head sweat.” He pats his thinning hair. “Not a pretty sight.”

She sprinkles a few drops on his eggs, anyway. “Good for your heart,” she says. “Besides, I've seen your sweat before.”

And it's true. Trot has sweated with Dagmar in backseats, in tents, and once, during the night of their junior prom, in a hammock. He had rope burns for a week. His face turns red at the memory.

They know each other so well that she can feel him think this. “I meant in the summer,” she laughs. “I've seen you sweat in the summer.” She rolls her eyes. “Stop blushing.”

His face goes flush again. “It's the hot sauce.” Sweat is now pouring from his head like rain.

“Good?”

He coughs. “Hot.”

For a while they eat without speaking. All that can be heard is Cocoa and Izzy in The Café below them. They are stripping away with collegiate vigor. After a while Dagmar says, “You know Leon is really more decent than you give him credit for.” And as soon as she says it, she regrets it. Trot stops chewing. Goes pale. She was only trying to explain, but it came out like an accusation.

“He's a decent guy,” she tries again. “Really.”

“Was,”
Trot wants to say, “Leon
was
decent,” but he doesn't. “He was my best friend,” he says quietly. “I did love him.” Then Trot puts his fork down.

Dagmar feels his sorrow. No longer hungry, she pushes her plate away.

“Gimme an ‘S!'” Izzy and Cocoa shout beneath them in unison.

“S!” The crowd shouts back. Enthusiastic.

Trot folds his napkin and places it next to the coffee cup. “I should go. Sorry about the mess in the kitchen.”

“Look, I'm sorry—”

Trot nods. It's clear that they are both missing Leon. Despite everything—all the history, all the pain—they miss him.

Beneath them the dancers work the crowd.

“Gimme an ‘E'!”

“E!” the crowd responds.

“Gimme an ‘X'!”

“X!”

“Gimme an S! Gimme an E! Gimme an X!”

Izzy and Cocoa bounce in unison. “Whadda ya got?” They lift up their tiny pleated skirts. The crowd hoots and whistles.

“SEX!”

The word is thunderous.

Trot can smell sleep on Dagmar's skin: like baby powder, like silk. His face feels so hot he thinks he can grill on it. “I really just stopped by because I thought you might need something,” he says. It nearly feels true.

Downstairs the crowd kicks into a boozy version of “On Wisconsin.” Pom-poms fly.

“So, do you need anything?” he asks.

Dagmar shrugs.

The crowd sings, “Fight, fellows, fight, fight, fight! We'll win tonight!”

The floorboards underneath Trot and Dagmar's feet shake. It's difficult to ignore any longer.

Trot winces. Dagmar looks closely at him. For the first time, she actually sees him for who he is now, not who he was back then, so long ago. The years have changed him, as they've changed her. They've deepened the lines around his mouth. He's thinner now. Hard-edged. Filled with more sorrow than she remembers.