Whistling In The Dark Part 8

She stood up extra straight and looked off into the distance with a serious face and when I didn't say anything, she said, "Don't you get it? I'm the Statue of Liberty."

"Ohhhh," I said, not wanting to get too close to that pointy crown, which looked like it could definitely poke your eye out.

"It's the piece de resistance, non?" Troo laughed. "I looked up a picture of it over at the library and Mrs. Kambowski has been teaching me some more French words. Did you know the statue was a present from France?"

I wished I had a Brownie camera. I would've taken a picture of Troo and run it up to the hospital to Mother. Troo looked so beautiful and so . . . foreign.

"Do you like my chapeau?"

I searched around for whatever the heck a chapeau was.

She pointed at the crown.

"Ohhh," I said again. "But what's the ice cream cone got to do with it?"

Troo shook it at me and said, "It's not an ice cream cone, you nitwit. It's her torch. I found an old sheet for her dress but I took it off because I kept trippin' on it and fallin' down."

She carefully wheeled her bike through the backyard and down the front hill, me trailing behind. Looking at Troo that morning as we walked toward the park, the sun bouncing off her shiny chapeau, I knew what I had to do to protect her. I had to come up with some sort of a plan for my little Statue of Liberty. Why hadn't I thought of this before? Because if Rasmussen murdered and molested me, she would never be able to stand it. n.o.body could whistle in the dark that loud, not even my Troo. So a scheme was what I needed. Like in one of those movies at the Uptown. Just like that Humphrey Bogart. He always had a scheme.

Yes, what I needed to do was get the goods on Rasmussen. Spy on him, catch him doing something that he shouldn't or find some evidence, and then I could reveal him to everybody for what he really was. But maybe I wouldn't start that until I had a chance to talk to Mary Lane, because she was the best spy in the neighborhood. Mary Lane was a regular Mata Hari. Or maybe I'd wait until after Sara Heinemann's funeral, which was going to be tomorrow. Would Rasmussen go to the funeral? Sometimes in movies after somebody murdered somebody they would go to the funeral. Mary Lane always hung around after she lit a fire. Just stood there and watched it burn until there was nothing left but the smell and the smile on her face.

What a show!

Hundreds of kids and bikes and dogs with bows around their necks and even some baby buggies covered the big gra.s.sy area that ran along the banks of the Honey Creek. There were balloons hanging from the trees and picnic benches scattered around with paper tablecloths the same color as the flags on little sticks that everybody was waving around. The day was the hottest yet this summer and everybody was saying thank G.o.d for the shade. The Fourth was always hot around here, you could count on that. But this was even hotter than what you could count on.

The Everly Brothers were blaring out of loudspeakers, trying to wake up Little Susie, until someone came on and said, "All children under twelve should meet under the oak tree with the red ribbon around it." Troo jumped up off the gra.s.s and said, "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go."

I trailed behind her as we shoved through a crowd of older kids, one of them being Greasy Al Molinari, who was probably just there to steal some kid's bike when they went to the bathroom.

Greasy Al pointed at Troo's crown and torch and said, "What ya s'posed to be, O'Malley? A TV-antenna-eatin' ice cream cone?" His beady greasy eyes stared out from beneath his clumpy black eyebrows. His mouth hung half open like it always did. "I been lookin' for you."

"Oh, yeah?" Troo smiled and said, "What would a spaghetti for brains like you want with me?"

The big muscles in Greasy Al's arms twitched. He and his brothers liked to lift weights in their garage on this bench they had sitting below this picture of Ava Gardner in a leopard-skin bathing suit. "What did you just call me, you little mick?"

Troo smiled her even better smile, the one where she shows every single one of her teeth. "You heard me. Or are your ears as gimpy as your polio leg?"

Greasy Al pushed off the tree and walked up to us. "Nice bike."

"Don't even think about stealing this bike," Troo snarled. "And if you ever come after my sister again, I'll-"

The voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "Last call for the under-twelves bicycle-decorating contest. At the oak tree with the red ribbon."

"Let me by, you dago," Troo said, trying to push past him. Greasy Al had her front bike wheel in between his legs.

And then real fast, Greasy Al took out his switchblade knife from his back pocket and cut all the white Kleenex flowers off Troo's handlebars with one hand and with the other ripped off her crown. He hunch-limped away laughing, smashing the shiny aluminum foil between his fingers.

"Last call for the under-twelves," the voice said again.

If this had happened to anybody else but Troo, like me for instance, I'd be bawling my head off. But not my Real Trooper. She stared after Greasy Al, and if looks really could kill, Greasy Al woulda been deader than a doork.n.o.b.

Then out of nowhere Rasmussen showed up with a ribbon on his T-shirt that said JUDGE. No matter where we went or what we did, it seemed like Rasmussen was just around the corner.

"Morning, girls," he said. He looked different out of his policeman's uniform. More like some of the other men from the neighborhood. "You better get over there, Troo, the judging is about to begin." He took out some Scotch tape from his pocket and then quickly picked up the white flowers off the ground and taped them all back on to Troo's handlebars.

Troo pushed her bike past him and made her way over to the oak tree. She forgot to thank Rasmussen because I knew she was busy thinking about how she would find Greasy Al later and do something really hideous to him. My sister had her cruisin' for a bruisin' wild look on her face.

Rasmussen smiled down at me and said, "You feeling okay? Recovered from last night?" I didn't look up, but I nodded. "Glad to hear it," he said, and him and his clipboard moved over to a group of mothers with decorated baby buggies. Too bad Rasmussen liked to murder and molest girls because if he didn't he probably would've been considered a good egg. That's why Junie and Sara went off with him, because I also learned from those movies that when a crime was committed it was always somebody that n.o.body suspected. Like Jeeves, the good egg butler.

The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers and Italian sausage and bratwurst on the grills hung in the air even though it was early in the morning. After the sack races, Troo and me planned to eat so much food they'd have to take us home in a coaster wagon. Like camels, we'd be able to go a few more days without eating, and then on Thursday night Willie had invited us to have supper with him and his ma and Officer Riordan, who I thought I would tell about Rasmussen after all. If the timing was right.

Over thirty kids had entered but everybody there could tell right off that this was a two-horse race, just like it'd been last year. Troo was smiling at one of the judges, who was Mary Lane's father. I guessed since the zoo was right next door, maybe since he wasn't feeding Sampson, they made him come over and judge the bike-decorating contest.

Mr. Lane was looking over Artie Latour's bike. Holy Ma gillacuddy! Artie had really gone all out. Way out! He had streamers trailing off his handlebars and baseball cards in the spokes and sitting in his basket was a giant cardboard picture of Abraham Lincoln, who looked-I'd never noticed this before-quite a lot like Nana Fazio, but much, much taller.

Mr. Lane came up to us and said, "How's your mother feeling?" He bent down to look at the flowers that Rasmussen had taped back on Troo's handlebars.

Putting on her absolutely best manners and her dolly voice, Troo said, "She's doing fine, Mr. Lane. Thank you so much for asking."

"Top-notch decorating, Troo. Top-notch." Mr. Lane wrote something on his clipboard and moved down the line.

The loudspeaker crackled again and the man said, "Five minutes, judges. Five minutes left."

Greasy Al Molinari was sitting on a picnic table using his switchblade to carve something into the brown wood. Troo couldn't take her eyes off of him even after Rasmussen went over and started talking to him. I watched as Greasy Al slapped his switchblade knife into Rasmussen's hand and limped off toward the Honey Creek, kicking Troo's crushed-up crown along the ground.

"Before the sack race, let's go down to the creek and cool off, okay?" Troo said, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her arm.

"Yeah, the creek sounds real good." I knew she might lose this year because Artie's bike was a lollapalooza and I would've done anything to make her feel better, even go down to the creek with her and throw stones at Greasy Al.

The loudspeaker buzzed back on. "All right, everybody, all the judging is final. If you hear your name, please go over to the judges' table next to the picnic area to pick up your prize."

Wendy Latour won the prize for the best-decorated wagon. When she saw me she sang, "Thally O'Malley. Hi . . . hi . . . hi," and then threw me some of her Dinah Sh.o.r.e USA kisses.

Mr. Mahlberg, who was doing the announcing, told everyone that some kid I didn't know named Billy Quigley won for best tricycle. And then he said, "The twelve and unders were tough this year. Real tough." Oh no. Oh no. Poor Troo. "Will Artie Latour and Troo O'Malley please come to the judges' table?"

Of course I went with, and when we got there, Mr. Lane smiled and said, "Congratulations, Troo. You and Artie tied." I thought the judges made it into a tie like that because our mother was dying, because Artie really deserved that first place. But a tie was good. That way n.o.body was going to spend the rest of the day shooting daggers out of their eyes at one another. But Troo wasn't any too happy with that tie. I could tell by her too-wide, fake smile. "Go claim your prize," Mr. Lane said, pointing behind us.

A big Kenfield's Five and Dime banner hung behind the prize table. Mrs. Callahan was congratulating the winners.

"h.e.l.lo, girls," she said when we came up. "Congratulations, Troo."

Betty Callahan got up from the folding chair and put her arms around us. She had on a sleeveless white blouse, navy Bermuda shorts and gold earrings. She also had a lot of oomph in her hair that she had recently changed. "You two doin' all right?" she asked.

Mrs. Callahan smelled so good that I almost started crying, but then I looked over at Troo and she shot me a don't-you-dare look. She must've also smelled that Evening in Paris.

"I visited your mother yesterday," Mrs. Callahan said.

Troo was getting antsy, looking over at the prize table and not even listening. I knew what she had her eye on. It was a genuine Davy Crockett c.o.o.nskin cap. Being the lover of hats that she was, she'd been admiring them up at the Five and Dime for the last week and now Artie Latour was running his hand through the fur.

"My sister, Margie, who's a nurse up at St. Joe's, told me that Helen is holding her own," Mrs. Callahan said.

Troo wandered toward the prize table and got up right behind Artie and whispered something in his ear. Probably threatening to drown him in the Honey Creek if he didn't let her have that c.o.o.nskin cap.

"You sure everything is okay at your house, Sal?"

"Everything is fine, Mrs. Callahan." Now Artie had that c.o.o.nskin in his hand and Troo was grabbing the c.o.o.nskin tail and if I didn't do something, this would turn into the kind of roll-around-on-the-ground fight that Troo had a bad reputation for.

I started to hurry toward them, but then I stopped and turned my head back to Mrs. Callahan. "Is that true what you just said about Mother? That she's holding her own?" I wasn't sure what that meant but it sounded pretty good and I wished she really was holding her own. Mrs. Callahan looked me directly in the eye and couldn't say another word, so I pretty much knew she was just saying that to make me feel better.

"Fight!"

I turned and there were Artie and Troo wrestling and rolling in the dirt. She had the c.o.o.nskin cap tucked under her arm and wouldn't give it up, and then she kicked Artie a good one in the leg right before Mr. Lane came by to pull her off. Mr. Lane picked up the c.o.o.nskin and set it on Troo's head. I looked back at Artie Latour doubled over on the ground holding his leg. His shirt had got ripped and dirt caked his sweaty arms, and I thought in some special way our mother dying was working out okay for us because we were gettin' cut all sorts of slack.

Troo was thinking the exact same thing. Because she got up off the ground, flipped the c.o.o.nskin tail at Artie and took off laughing, waving her ice cream torch back and forth and yelling, "Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled messes."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

For fifteen minutes or so I lost Troo in all the red, white and blue, so I had a nice visit with Ethel, who had the day off from taking care of Mrs. Galecki. Ethel'd come with her gentleman friend named Mr. Raymond Buckland Johnson, who said we could call him Ray Buck for short. He was from the South just like Ethel. Georgia, I think he said. Ray Buck was a city bus driver and his skin was as black as a bad luck cat. Much blacker than Ethel, who was the color of a Hershey bar. Ray Buck was also tall, thin and a little hunched over in the shoulders, so when he turned sideways he looked like a question mark. Troo and me, we just adored Ethel and were getting to know Ray Buck a little bit better and were beginning to adore him as well.

Some people around here didn't like the Negroes. Like Hall. And Reese Latour, who called me and Troo n.i.g.g.e.r lovers every chance he got. Troo and me had asked Ethel about why that was. She'd told us she didn't know why for certain, but that it was true that some white folks didn't care too much for coloreds. Down in the South there was even this club called the KKK that was really mean to Negroes. They dressed up in sheets and burned crosses on the Negroes' front lawns to hurt their feelings, which made me wonder for a second if Rasmussen belonged to the KKK because of that pillowcase he had on his head when he'd tried to grab me at the Fazios'.

"So, Miss Sally, how's your mama doin'?" Ethel asked, after she suggested that Ray Buck go off to the refreshment stand to get her a cool drink. Ethel always called us Miss Troo or Miss Sally because she had the best manners and liked manners in others. I just loved to listen to her talk. She was another one with an accent, but not like Willie's Brooklyn one or the Goldmans' German one, which were hard sounding, like they were just about to get in a fight with you. Ethel's accent flowed like the Honey Creek water, and one time when I was helping her hull strawberries for shortcake I fell dead asleep on the kitchen chair because come to think of it, that's what her voice really sounded like. A lullaby.

"Mrs. Callahan just told me that Mother is holding her own, Ethel, thank you for asking," I said.

I pulled myself up onto the first limb of the tree that Ethel was sitting under, so I could get a better lookout for Troo.

"That so? Your mama's holdin' her own? Well, Lordy, that is good news to these tired ears." Ethel was below me in a plastic chair, barefoot and fanning herself with a newspaper, which she said she liked to read because it was important to be educated to the goings-on. She turned to gaze up at me. "How come you and Miss Troo ain't been by lately?"

"We been busy." I wanted to tell Ethel how Rasmussen was trying to murder and molest me and I hadn't felt much like coming by since she lived right next door to him. But as Mother always said, there was a time and place for everything. "How is Mrs. Galecki feeling?"

"She's been askin' for you. And so has Mr. Gary."

"Mr. Gary's here?" I asked, excited.

Mrs. Galecki's son, Mr. Gary Galecki, lived in California and would come and see his mother every summer. The last time he was here he played old maid with me and Troo for over two hours out on the screened-in porch and that made Troo say that she thought Mr. Gary especially must like kids because d.a.m.n, you couldn't hardly get a grown-up to do anything with you at all. Mr. Gary Galecki was another good egg.

"Mr. Gary's feelin's are real hurt that you and Miss Troo ain't stopped by to say hey." Ethel looked scrumptious today. She had on a little straw hat with creamy pansy flowers and her dress was lemon colored and made her chocolate skin really stand out quite nicely. That's why Ray Buck was looking at Ethel the way he was when he brought her back a cup of iced tea. She really did look good enough to eat. Ray Buck could see we were visiting so after he gave Ethel her drink and a wink, he moved over to the side with his smooth walk and lit up a cigarette with a snap of his lighter.

"We'll come by real soon, I promise. Troo was just tellin' me today how much she was looking forward to seeing Mr. Gary."

"All right then, I'll tell him he can be expectin' you." Ethel took a long drink out of her cup and then moved around in her chair a little to get comfortable because she believed in being as comfortable as possible at all times. Life had enough uncomfortable in it, she always said.

"Are you little gals bein' careful? I been readin' in the newspaper that there's a crazy man out there and I heard tell that somebody grabbed at you over at the Fazios' yard the other night. You best pay attention when you're out and about." Ethel sounded like she knew what it meant to be grabbed at. "Alls I gotta say is thank the Lord that Mr. Rasmussen lives next door to me. Gives me a feelin' of such safety."

Should I tell her? Shouldn't I tell Ethel, my dear Negro friend, how very smart she was about certain things like how to take care of sick people and how to make the best blond brownies and how she had the singing voice of all the cherubs in heaven, but that she was wrong, dead wrong, about Rasmussen?

I looked out over the crowd while I was deciding about that and spotted Troo's Statue of Liberty torch. She was talking to Uncle Paulie, who probably wasn't working today at Jerbak's Beer 'n Bowl setting up pins for one dollar and ten cents an hour because the lanes were closed for the Fourth like everything else was. The other thing Uncle Paulie did to make money for himself and Granny was collect soda bottles out of people's garbage cans and take them to Delancey's Corner Store. Mrs. Delancey gave him two pennies for the bottles and Uncle Paulie always counted them real carefully, like maybe Mrs. Delancey was trying to gyp him.

Uncle Paulie was looking at the ground and pointing at something. Troo bent down and handed it to him, and then he ran around her and put his hands over her eyes. I could see his mouth moving. I knew he was saying "Peek-a-boo." Troo pushed his fingers off her face and ran.

"Did you hear what I said, Miss Sally?"

"Pardon me?" I had to use manners around Ethel or she would get after me.

Ethel sighed, and when she did her bosoms went up and down just like Artie Latour's Adam's apple. "I said you and Miss Troo should come over to see the puppy that Officer Rasmussen got. I know how Troo is still missin' that Butchy dog of hers." She had probably told him about how we had to leave Butchy out on the farm. Rasmussen probably bought that puppy to trick me into trusting him. It was common knowledge that me and Troo had a fondness for animals of all kinds.

"What happened to Officer Rasmussen's wife?" I asked before I had even figured out I was gonna do that.

Ethel turned quickly back toward me. "Dave Rasmussen don't have a wife. He's a bachelor man."

"Why do you think he doesn't have a wife?" I was swinging my feet back and forth up in that tree. I was getting nervous now, talking about Rasmussen, because I already knew why he didn't have a wife. Rasmussen didn't like wives. Rasmussen liked little girls. From up in the tree crook, I could see what everybody was doin'. Troo had found Willie. They were holding hands, walking toward the gully that led down to the Honey Creek.

Ethel said, "Come down here, Miss Sally. This twistin' and turnin' is givin' me a pain in my neck and Lord knows, I don't need another one of them."

I always did what Ethel told me to do so I hopped out of the tree and landed on the gra.s.s next to her. She ran her hand down my hair and told me it reminded her of a bag of just picked cotton.

"You know, my mama, she died young," Ethel said quietly. "It's a sad thing when a woman gets sick and dies 'fore she's done doin' her mothering. It just ain't right and not in the order of things. So you say a lot of prayers that your mama gets better, okay?"

I nodded and then Ray Buck came over and said, "Time to take a stroll over," and pointed toward the zoo. They were going over to see Sampson because that was what everybody liked to do over there. Admire the King of the Jungle.

"I'll see ya later, Miss Sally. Maybe at them fireworks." Ethel stood, pulled her lemon dress down and smiled at Ray Buck when he offered her his arm. "You give my best to Miss Troo and tell her that Mr. Gary brought along his old maid cards and he's a-rarin' to go."

"You say h.e.l.lo to Mr. Gary for us and you can count on us this week to help you with Mrs. Galecki. I have a new book from the library with some beautiful pictures I think she'll like. It's called Black Beauty."

Ethel grinned and said, "Why didn't n.o.body tell me that somebody done wrote a book about me?"

Ray Buck started laughing so hard he had to clear his throat and spit.

I didn't get the joke until the two of them were walking on the path over toward Sampson, and then thought I better get down to the creek and get Troo because they just announced that the sack races would begin in five minutes. I'd tell Ethel later that was a good one.

Mary Lane, who I think musta been on her third or fourth Eskimo Pie, because she had four of those sticks lined up in front of her, called me over and said, "Take these and give 'em to your uncle Paulie so I can put that in my charitable works story."

Everybody in the neighborhood knew about Uncle Paulie and his Popsicle sticks. Just like everybody knew that Mrs. Goldman wouldn't ever wear the color gray and Ethel wouldn't drink Coca-Cola unless she could drop peanuts in it and that Mrs. Latour was not going to have any more kids because she'd gone into the hospital and had an operation where they took all her insides out and threw them away.

"Yeah . . . okay," I said, picking up the sticks. Mary Lane didn't want to give the sticks to him herself because Uncle Paulie was so odd. The way he always walked with his head down like he was searching for something. And the way he talked, which was real slow and sometimes didn't make sense. And he also smiled too much, particularly at stuff n.o.body else smiled at. Like at that dead bird I found in Granny's backyard. Before he had the accident and got his brain damaged, he hardly ever smiled. Granny used to warn me to steer clear of him, to not get on Uncle Paulie's bad side because "That boy can get his Irish up." The way she said it, I could tell she was afraid of her own son.

I stuck Mary Lane's sticks in my pocket and felt like a bad Catholic for sometimes not liking my own uncle, so I made up my mind to go look for him. But first I wanted to cool down with Troo and make sure she wasn't throwing anything at Greasy Al.

"Three minutes . . . three minutes, everybody, until the sack races . . . find a partner," came over the loudspeaker.

Everybody was laughing and eating and sweating and the sun felt so scorchy, like if we stayed out in it long enough we'd all melt like ice cream and there'd be nothin' left of us to see but people puddles.