Pagan Babies Part 10

"Is that right?"

"You put on an act sometimes, don't you?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're this simple soul."

"I am."

She said, "Uh-huh. Are you hungry?"

"I thought we might twist one and go for seconds."

She said, "Oh my. Really?"

So they didn't get to Randy and how well he was fixed until the next intermission and were resting again, Debbie telling about her visit with Randy's ex, Mary Lou Martz. "See, she didn't change her name when she married Randy. She's always been Mrs. William Martz in Detroit society, a patron of anything that has to do with the arts-the symphony, the opera company, the art inst.i.tute. She's active, and very popular, known to her friends as Lulu."

"You call her that?"

"I didn't call her anything. On the phone I told her about my experience with Randy and she invited me to her home in Grosse Pointe Park, a beauty, like a French chateau on Lake St. Clair. I was surprised she was so willing to talk about him. She was Miss Michigan first runner-up about thirty years ago, looks good, keeps in shape, has had a couple of lifts-"

"She told you that?"

"You could tell. I asked if Randy wanted her to sail around the world with him. She said it was almost the first thing out of his mouth. At some black-tie affair."

"The guy works hard, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, but you know what she said to him? 'Your yacht or mine?' Cool? She had her guard up and still fell for him. He told her he was writing a book on the conflict in the Middle East, having covered it during the past ten years for the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune, living in Paris most of the time. Though he kept his boat in Haifa, Israel. Four months from the time they met, Randy supposedly hopping back and forth to the Middle East, they were married."

"How'd she get on to him?"

"Little things. He lived in Paris for years but didn't speak any French. He told her it wasn't necessary, everyone there spoke English. Lulu had been to Paris enough times to know that was bulls.h.i.+t. She wanted to hop over to Israel with him, take his boat out and cruise the Greek islands. Randy goes yeah, let's do it. Then he's gone for a week. The next time she sees him he tells her the PLO blew up his boat. They hate him and he's on their hit list. Tell a big enough lie you can get away with it for a while. But now he's running up charges, buys a new Jaguar... Lulu wants to know what happened to his money. He had told her he was given a two-hundred-thousand-dollar advance by a publisher, but it ran out as he worked on his book. Lulu said, 'What book? I don't see you writing any f.u.c.king book.' "

"That's what she said?"

"Words to that effect. He told her he'd had writer's block for the past year but believed he was about to break through and get going again. Lulu put a detective on him and that was that. But, it didn't happen soon enough. Because the marriage lasted more than a year, the prenuptial agreement kicked in and Randy walked away with his settlement, a few mil and the restaurant."

"Have you seen it?"

"Not inside. I don't want him to know I'm around just yet. Lulu won't go near it. She said if she knew how to make a bomb she'd blow the place up. With Randy in it."

"She wanted to get laid," Terry said, "and it cost her."

"She wanted to meet a nice guy, that's all, and have some fun."

"What was her husband's company?"

"Timco Industries. Automotive suppliers, they make fittings."

"Yeah?"

"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Nuts and bolts."

"Connectors," Debbie said. "What they use when they're putting together suba.s.semblies on a conveyor line. Like, you know, engines, transmissions, fuel tanks, they have to be connected on a line that's turning out a car every minute. You can't use a wrench, it would slow up the line. So Lulu's husband, Bill, invented a way to snap the parts together with a plastic fitting . . . and an O-ring for a seal. I remember it in case I want to use it sometime."

"That made him rich, a plastic fitting?"

"With the O-ring. Terry, ten million cars a year come off the line with her husband's patent holding them together. He sold the company so he could retire and play golf."

"And he died right after?"

"On the twelfth at Oakland Hills, a long five par."

"The company's Timco?"

"Automotive suppliers," Debbie said, "have names like that, Timco, Ranco, you never know what they do. I've done stand-up at dinners put on by suppliers you've never heard of and all those guys are millionaires."

Terry said, "Makes you want to go to work for a living, huh?"

They got up to grill hot dogs and an hour later were back in bed, all the lights off in the apartment.

Terry said in the dark, "What're you gonna do, slip and fall in Randy's restaurant?"

"I'm not," Debbie said, "you are. Fr. Terry Dunn, missionary hero from Rwanda, the sole support of hundreds of starving children."

13.

THEY DIDN'T TALK ABOUT IT last night, in bed. He did say, "I walk in the restaurant and slip and fall. On what?" All Debbie said was, "We'll work it out." This morning sipping her instant coffee he said, "How do we work it out?" And she said, "What?"

Well, here she was now, looking up at the high-domed foyer, Terry watching her from the top of the curving staircase: Debbie in a dark skirt and turtleneck beneath the open raincoat, Debbie clickety-clicking across the marble floor, doing a tap routine in her heels.

"You know what I wanted to be more than anything? A chorus girl."

"Why didn't you?"

"I found out it was work. You know, to be any good and get in a show. I was a go-go dancer once, but only for a few weeks, when I was at U of M."

"I'd like to have seen that."

"You did. I didn't have enough t.i.t to be a star. And really, to do it for a living you have to be on crack."

"Come on up."

She said, "Wait," and clickety-clicked over to take a look at the living room. Coming up the carpeted staircase she said, "It's o-kay, what I call four-star hotel decor, Mary Pat not taking any chances."

"Nothing from Taiwan," Terry said, "or India."

"Now you're making fun of my decor, Pier One kitsch and St. Vincent de Paul hand-medowns." She reached the top and kissed Terry on the mouth. "What's your plan, throw me on a bed?"

"I thought you wanted to see the house."

"I do, and I won't make any more cheap remarks."

They came to the master bedroom, gold draperies, a tufted gold spread covering the king-size bed. Debbie looked in. "So this is where Fran and Mary Pat do it."

"We know they have at least twice," Terry said, and in the same moment wished he hadn't, sounding like a smart-a.s.s for no reason. He brought Debbie along to the little girls' rooms.

She looked in at each one and said, "Cute."

Nothing about the dolls and stuffed animals.

"Remind you of when you were little?"

"I was more into dancing and playing doctor."

He said after a moment, "It's a nice place though, isn't it?" thinking of his brother who loved his home and was proud of it.

She said, "The house? Yeah, it's very nice. What else is up here?"

"The guest room, where I'm staying."

He showed her and she looked in at the twin beds with white spreads, a comfortable chair, Terry's duffel and athletic bag on the desk, no clothes lying about.

"You keep your room neat. There's a good boy."

"I don't have enough stuff to mess it up."

Now she said, "Terry, what is that?"

His machete, lying on the desk close to the duffel.

"For cracking open coconuts."

She went into the room and picked it up to heft it and put it down, not saying one word, and walked to a window.

"I've got the Rwanda pictures here," Terry said. He picked up the athletic bag and turned to the beds, but then walked up behind Debbie at the window. They looked out at a swimming pool covered in dark-green plastic, the rest of the yard, the leafless trees and shrubs stark, the dead look of winter holding on. He said, "Fran hangs a swing from that maple tree in the summer."

He turned and walked over to stand between the twin beds with the athletic bag, Debbie, still at the window, saying, "I should do a bit on winter in Detroit. s.h.i.+t, if this is spring, I could do a whole set." Terry was taking the color photos from the bag now as she said, "I wish Randy lived in Florida. I think I'll move there after we score. You want to?"

Terry didn't answer, busy laying out photos on the spread; he wasn't sure what she meant. Did he want to move to Florida after? With her, or what? Now she was next to him between the beds, looking down at the photos. She asked how many he had and he said about two hundred. "These are the best ones."

"Are they all boys?"

"No, but that age, it's hard to tell them apart. Some of these kids are in orphanages, but they're not much better off than the ones that live in the street. They form families, an older girl maybe fifteen taking care of the little ones. They're on their own, they have to scrounge for food, clothes to wear . . . This kid's digging in a charcoal pit. He'll collect bits and pieces that haven't burned and sell them."

Terry handed Debbie a photo.

"Kids at a garbage dump looking for something to eat."

She said, "Jesus, Terry," and sat down on the bed behind her with the picture. She said, "But in some of the shots the land looks so green and lush, crops growing everywhere-"

"They're children," Terry said, "they're not farmers, with land. They're little Tutsis n.o.body wants. Here, a couple of ten-year-olds smoking cigarettes. They roll their own. This boy, he's thirteen now, killed a friend of his during the genocide. With a machete. They were eight years old at the time." Terry was saying, "What do you do with this boy?" and looked up.

So did Debbie. She said, "Did you hear that? Someone calling you?"

He was moving now, reaching for the machete on his way out of the room, Debbie behind him, Terry saying, "You left the door open."

"It was open when I got here."

In the hall they heard the voice again, calling out, "Terry, you f.u.c.k, where're you at?"

And he knew who it was.

At the staircase railing that curved around to the hall, they looked down at the foyer to see Johnny Pajonny looking up at them.

Terry said, "My man Johnny."

Johnny said, "Where's my f.u.c.kin money?"

It surprised her when he stopped to pick up the machete from the desk. Debbie, behind him, had put her hand out, almost b.u.mping into him. She wondered if it was a reaction left over from Africa: you hear something, grab a machete.

Now she watched Terry going down the stairs with it, the blade about a foot and a half long, the carved handle a natural color of wood, Terry holding it pointed down, along his leg. Johnny saw it. She heard him say, "The f.u.c.k is that, a sword?" She heard Terry, on the stairs, say, "A machete," and as he reached the marble floor, "one I found in the church after they hacked to death seventy people, while I was on the altar saying Ma.s.s. There was still blood on it." Johnny said, "Jesus Christ." She watched Terry raise the machete, hold it by the blade and offer Johnny the carved wood handle. Taking it Johnny said, "Jesus Christ, they kill people with this?" "Chop their heads off," Terry said, "and their feet." Debbie started down the staircase, her hand sliding along the gold leaf railing. She saw Johnny look up, but only glance at her as he hefted the machete saying, "It's heavier'n it looks." He made a short hacking motion with it. "They actually killed people with this, uh?" And Terry said, "Right in front of me." Debbie paused a few steps from the floor, then remained there to watch.

It was a show. Johnny comes in yelling for his money and Terry meets him with a machete and tells about death in Africa.

Two buddies from cigarette-smuggling days. Terry in Levi's and a blousy white starched dress s.h.i.+rt that had to be Fran's. Johnny in a long black-leather jacket, collar turned up behind his thin dark hair slicked into a half-a.s.sed ponytail. He wasn't bad-looking. He was shorter than Terry, five eight or nine, one of those skinny tough guys with a slight stoop to his bony shoulders. He said, "You're a priest, huh? I don't f.u.c.kin believe it."

Which could mean, the way Debbie heard it, he did believe it. She watched Terry make the sign of the cross over Johnny, saying, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . ." "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . ."

Johnny waved the machete at him, saying, "Get outta here, for Christ sake. I want to know what you did with my money, ten grand, and d.i.c.kie's."

"d.i.c.kie gave his to an orphanage."

It stopped Johnny and he got with it saying, "Oh, is that right? And who'd I give mine to?"

"Some lepers."