Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?: A Novel Read online

  But the tail is a concern. There’s no hiding a tail five feet long that won’t stay wrapped around his waist. It likes to flip about like the tail of a disgruntled cat. Fidget wishes he could meet these downturnings of fortune philosophically, but as his age increases so his patience decreases. A few years ago, he had paws instead of hands, and once he had the hooves of a palomino horse, which were noisy. So a rat’s tail is a step up, as long as people don’t see it. Fidget believes if he just had an alcohol drip, as he once had a morphine drip, he wouldn’t be plagued by illusionary appendages.

  He’d been on the sidewalk by the music store when the accident took place, and although he is shocked by the man’s death—the tearing asunder and general horror—he also looks for opportunity, as he always looks for opportunity. This morning he thinks he has found it. He feels sure he has seen something he can turn into money, maybe a lot of money, if he’s patient.

  Right now he focuses on how he’ll spend his money, and these imaginings are a lively pleasure. He’ll say good-bye to sleeping under the bridge. He’ll rent a single-room apartment with an electric fire and an armchair where he can sit in the evenings and chew on a good cigar. It’s a happy-making image; it also strikes him as suitably modest, so modest that he feels sure of its fulfillment. But as for patience, Fidget knows no patience, unless it’s the open-ended patience called forgetting.

  Fidget has moved into the street closer to the scene of the accident to a spot that he believes is free of the dead guy’s fleshy remnants. He wears no socks, and his sneakers have holes. No way does he want bits of the dead guy glued to the bottoms of his feet. A city detective talks to the driver of the truck as they stand by the open door of the cab. Fidget wants to know what they’re talking about. The keys are in the ignition, and a steady ding-ding-ding comes from the cab. A TV truck has driven up Bank Street to the other side of the dump truck, and a cameraman films the dead guy’s feet, one with a boot, one not. No way is that shot going to make the evening news.

  Fidget takes a step closer, then turns his back to suggest a lack of interest. Coming toward him along the sidewalk are ten firemen pulling a very long hose. They grunt and stumble and press on, as if pulling a full-size elephant by its trunk. Shielded by firemen, Fidget takes another step toward the detective. He’s had dealings with this man, whose name he can’t recall, and he knows the more pissed the man becomes, the more quietly he speaks. At the moment the detective is not raising his voice above a whisper. As for the driver, he’s saying something about the brakes or how his foot slipped. He holds his hands in front of him with his palms facing out; a drop of sweat hangs from the tip of his nose. He’s a middle-aged guy with a big belly, and his face is as round as a poker chip.

  Three uniformed cops make their way toward the truck, shooing gawkers from the scene. Fidget knows these cops from a multiplicity of threats and head slaps he’s received in the past. None can he call friends, but he’d like to hear something useful before he’s yelled at. He steps over the fire hose to the wall of a vacant furniture store across from the music store, and he stands quietly except for giving an occasional thump to his tail. It’s again begun its serpentine gestures.

  Fidget had seen the truck back out of the alley and shouted, “Hey!” or “Watch out!”—he can’t recall which—but nothing could be heard over the noise of the truck and the approaching motorcycle. Then, in a second, it was too late. He barely had time to duck into the music store’s alcove and crouch down with his hands over his head. The destruction of the Harley, the truck hitting the BMW at the curb and pushing it onto the sidewalk, the smashing of the music store’s display window have created serious wreckage, and if it hadn’t been for the BMW, the truck would have broken through the window to crush the shiny trumpets and trombones.

  Now the nearest cop shouts at him, “Get the fuck outta here, prickhead. You some kind of pervert?”

  Fidget moves back up Bank Street. No way does he want to get hit with a nightstick. His tail flaps back and forth. He smacks it to keep it quiet, but this only excites it. Over the years he’s had many humiliations. The tail is just the most recent. But Fidget can’t let it distract him from future profit.

  —

  Detective Benny Vikström stares at the truck driver’s belly, which hangs over his leather belt like a slab of snow curving over the edge of a winter roof, although this particular slab is covered by a blue work shirt. Vikström tries to guess how many gallons of beer over how many years produced a gut like that.

  “I still don’t see why you couldn’t hit the brake.”

  The driver, Leon Pappalardo, shifts from one leg to the other. “I tried, I slammed down my foot but only hit the gas. I already told you I never drove this truck before. The pedals are different, I mean the space between them, like, it’s narrower. Then the gas stuck, and before I could fix it, I hit the Beemer.”

  “And the guy on the bike?”

  “Like I said, he ran into me. I feel bad about it.”

  Vikström lifts his eyes from the man’s belly to his face and decides he doesn’t look as if he feels bad. He looks scared. Vikström has seen this look often: pretend calm and confidence with fear leaking from the guy’s face like water from cupped hands. And Pappalardo’s dyed black hair suggests a vanity that, to Vikström’s mind, sits uneasily with the belly. It might even suggest a kind of ambition.

  Benny Vikström’s name is Swedish, which should surprise nobody. He likes his name, though he’s tired of people asking, “Whadja say it was again?” And when he spells it for someone, he adds, “With an umlaut,” which leads to more questions. He was born and brought up in New London, but his parents came from Malmö fifty years ago. Soon after that his father, Acke Vikström, took a job at Electric Boat.

  Vikström is forty-five, thin, a few inches over six feet, with one of those long, angular faces that appear cut from granite. His high cheekbones have an alpine look; his eyes are bright blue. His thinning blond hair is turning gray and is cut short with a fringe in front. He’s been a New London cop for fifteen years and a detective for five. By his figuring he should be a detective sergeant by now, but women fucked up the competition. He doesn’t complain, for the most part. It’s this equal-opportunity stuff. Even the police chief’s a woman, for crying out loud.

  “I still don’t see why you couldn’t hit the brake.”

  Leon Pappalardo’s head shakes like a bobblehead doll’s, and he squints up at Vikström. “Aren’t you fuckin’ listening? I already—”

  Vikström reaches out and taps on the beer belly with a knuckle, not a gentle tap. He’s half a foot taller than the driver and looms. “What did I say? You be nice, I’ll be nice. Didn’t I say that before? But I don’t have to be nice. Generally I’m not a nice person, or so the wife says. Generally I’m vicious.”

  Vikström wasn’t scheduled to work this morning, but someone called in sick. Not that Vikström thinks the guy is sick. On a glorious day like this, he’s most likely gone for a walk on the beach, like Vikström wanted to do instead of getting bent out of shape by the guy on the motorcycle. No, that isn’t right, not by the guy himself—by the guy’s many little parts. Their confetti-like aspect makes him queasy.

  Vikström’s gray suit coat brushes Pappalardo’s belly. “You mean you got excited and just couldn’t tell the difference between the brake and the gas? What kind of shit is that?”

  Pappalardo again bobbles his head. His dyed black hair is held in a ponytail, which sways back and forth.

  “I got big feet, just look at those feet.” The men stare at the feet, encased in old work boots with the shiny edges of the steel toes breaking though the leather. “D’you see many like that? Size fuckin’ fourteen. I’m lucky to get them in the cab.”

  “So you killed this guy because you got big feet?”

  “No way. He was going like a rocket. It’s, like, both our faults.”

  “Maybe you were talking on your phone and not paying attention.”

  �
�I lost my phone. I mean, it’s in my house someplace. I’m always losing it.”

  Leon Pappalardo’s sober, Vikström can tell that. He’s Vikström’s age, and he’s nervous. But he’s got a right to be nervous; maybe it’s not guilty nervous, maybe it’s I fucked up nervous. That’s the main thing—for Vikström there’s no clear reason to back up and hit the biker on purpose, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

  Firemen stand nearby holding a dry line, and by now the police have pushed the gawkers thirty feet up Bank Street. Vikström knows some, like Fidget and the cobbler and the black gay guy who runs an art gallery—what’s his name?

  Maurice, and who doesn’t like it when Vikström calls him Mo—pause—Reese, which isn’t a black thing like the guy thinks but goes back to the old cigarette ad: “Call for Phillip Mo—pause—Reese!”

  Vikström sees his partner, Manny Streeter, talking to a man farther up the sidewalk, getting another version of the story. Vikström has already given the truck driver a ticket for reckless driving leading to an accident, which is a big ticket and could cost him his job, but Vikström would like to give him something bigger, if only because a guy got killed, though “rent asunder” was more accurate. As for the big-feet business, it’s bullshit.

  Vikström pats Pappalardo’s stomach. “You a Budweiser man?”

  Pappalardo looks up in surprise. “Sometimes. Mostly it’s Nasty-gansett, the new Nasty-gansett.”

  “You’re from Rhode Island?” Narragansett is a Rhode Island beer.

  Again the driver looks surprised. “Brewster. It’s on the coast, the first town up from Charlestown. I live in Brewster.”

  “I know Brewster,” says Vikström. “I got friends there.”

  “Mostly it’s a quiet place,” says Pappalardo. “If you like quiet.”

  TWO

  Connor Raposo’s Mini-Cooper remains trapped. There’s no getting it out until a lot of other cars are moved. He holds the dead man’s motorcycle cap and stands on the curb near the cobbler’s shop, trying not to be pissed off. Who’s he going to get pissed off at, the dead guy on the Harley, Marco Santuzza? Connor has work to do, money to liberate from other people’s pockets, like it or not, and he won’t make a dime by standing around Bank Street.

  A few feet to his left, the street is blocked with yellow cop tape, while on the other side of the dump truck is a red pumper and a hook and ladder, as well as a white TV truck. The Harley’s busted fuel tank has spread gas over a patch of street, and the pumper is supposed to spray the pavement, but there’s an ethical problem, says the fire marshal. Since maybe twenty pounds of dead guy’s bits and pieces are stuck to the street, washing it down means sending ten percent of him into the sewer. So the fire marshal looks to ask permission, but he’s not sure who to ask: maybe the mayor, maybe a priest. Actually, he’s not looking for permission so much as looking for somebody else to share the blame. But that someone had better show up soon, because all that accelerant is a disaster waiting to happen.

  Connor has already spoken to two detectives about what he saw, which was nothing except the flash of the Harley going by. One of them was Benny Vikström, the other was his partner, Manny Streeter. About twenty people stand near Connor, and thirty more are in the street and on the opposite sidewalk. Half are drivers of blocked cars, others are gawkers. At the moment Connor stares at an old bum in a Red Sox cap swatting at something behind him, though Connor sees nothing behind him. The swatting is secretive and angry, and what seems especially odd is the old guy keeps looking in Connor’s direction, though Connor is sure he’s never seen him before.

  Forensics specialists lift small, unidentifiable bits with tweezers and put them into plastic bags. Two TV film crews interview bystanders. Print journalists clutch notepads, and one young female reporter has a photographer in tow. When the TV people asked Connor what he’d seen, he said he hadn’t seen anything and was only there to pick up some shoes.

  Ambulance attendants stand on the other side of the tape, waiting to be told what to do, not that a stretcher will help. A mop and shovel would be better. Connor is struck at how he’s gotten accustomed to the horror, but the Harley is hidden behind the cops and forensics guys, and he can almost imagine that the body is gone. The fact that the street is speckled with blood, tissue, and body parts is ghastly, but from this distance it’s an intellectual understanding.

  Many people’s faces remain distorted by disgust, horror, and intense interest. Some have their eyes squinched half shut as if the scene’s too bright; some are bug-eyed as if they can’t get enough; some take videos with their smartphones. By afternoon they’ll be on YouTube for the world to see.

  Connor scratches a spot, a small lump, on the front of his leather jacket, that he suspects might be a dollop of gore. This seems unlikely, because he was inside the cobbler’s shop when the crash occurred, though he got outside as fast as he could. Maybe the force of the accident threw bits of the motorcycle guy high in the air, where they hung for a moment before plummeting downward. With a little more picking, he realizes it’s a dab of oatmeal from breakfast, and he laughs.

  “I’m glad somebody thinks this is funny,” says a man slightly behind him. “I just want to get the fuck out of here.”

  Connor turns to see shiny black hair swept back from a brow, a pompadour vaguely like Elvis’s. The pompadour’s owner is shorter than Connor, and the hair, adding a few inches to his height, is at eye level. Connor realizes he knows this man, but he keeps his face blank till he’s sure the guy isn’t part of a work-related problem, which is why he and his friends left San Diego in the first place.

  Connor explains his confusion, that what he thought was a dollop of gore turns out to be a dollop of oatmeal. He laughs again, but mostly he wants to know where he’s seen this guy. It wasn’t on the West Coast, he’s sure of it, and it wasn’t recently. In fact, it’s the hair he remembers, and then, gradually, he recalls the rest: black caterpillar eyebrows, flat shovel nose, thin lips, square chin, and a restless shifting of his shoulders as if he were preparing to slug someone.

  The man wears a black shirt with the top button unbuttoned to display some gold chains. He has a tan jacket folded over his arm, and he holds it up, which shows off a gold Rolex. “The jacket’s got maybe twenty spots on it, blood and other shit. I could get it cleaned, but I wouldn’t like the memory.”

  Connor sees blood spots on the lapels and takes note of the Rolex. “You must have been standing close.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Is your car stuck here?”

  “Fuckin’ right.” The man points. “It’s the hunka junk in front of that toy car.”

  Connor pauses a beat, then says, “That happens to be my toy car.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to insult your wheels. No offense.”

  “None taken. Looks like your car’s had a lot of use.” The Chevy Caprice must have a broken suspension system: each of its four corners is at a different height.

  “What my car’s got is bigness. It’s the cop package. Full of power.”

  “It must have its advantages.”

  “Yeah, no one’s going to steal it, but right now the battery’s dead. It drains quick if it’s sitting. I didn’t think I’d be here so long. Is that the guy’s cap?”

  Connor puts on the cap. “Just a souvenir. It fits pretty well.”

  “Dead man’s cap. I saw him go by. It’s bad luck.” The man pats his hair in case any strands are out of place. Several gold-nugget rings twinkle.

  Connor laughs. “I’ll take the chance. Did you know the guy?” The man has no trace of a New England accent. If anything, it sounds like the Midwest, squeezing words together and giving “dead” two syllables.

  “Nah, but I’d recognized the bike. Fat Bob.”

  “Is that his name?”

  “It’s what they call the bike—it’s the model.”

  The fact the bike has a name makes it real again. It’s like two people being killed. “You saw the acc
ident?” asks Connor.

  Another train approaches, and its horn blasts them into a few seconds of silence. Then the man says, “I was looking in the music store. My kid wants a trombone so he can march in the school band. You know how kids are. So my back was to the street. I turned when the truck came out of the alley and the biker hit his brakes.”

  “It must have been awful.”

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  During this talk Connor keeps trying to place the man. It’s an expanding question that he can’t set aside. For the past year, Connor had a black mustache that he kept to please his girlfriend. When they broke up before he left San Diego, Connor shaved it off. However, he’d grown used to smoothing it back with his index finger and thumb, and though Connor has lost the mustache, he’s kept the gesture. He’s doing it now. It’s a gesture that accompanies thought.

  “You ever been in Detroit? There’s a guy you remind me of.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I never knew. He was a guy I’d see around the casino. Maybe he’s a relative.” But Connor knows that while a relative might have the man’s height, eyebrows, and nose, he wouldn’t have the pompadour.