It seemed self-preservation had made him forget his momentary suspicion toward me, so I relaxed. “Okay then,” I started, all business. “In that case, we gotta treat this place as a crime scene. I’m gonna have to advise Aldus. And get him down here to dust for prints.”
Billy frowned. “Can’t you do that?”
“Normally I would, Billy,” I said, “but I’ve gotta get to the jail asap. Dad’s birthday.”
Aldus was still at the aged-care home when I reached him on my cell. I told him the bare facts and explained that I needed him to come and dust. Aldus was annoyed. Not so much because there’d been a crime, but because for the second time in twenty-four hours his recreation was being interrupted by criminal activity. Sunday’s game day and the criminals of Dirtwater are usually good-mannered enough to respect it. Not today.
I was glad when I pulled away from the morgue, waving cheerfully to Billy in the rearview, ’cause I could stop the facade. And get away from a place that’s forever gonna feel haunted to me now.
Most of all, ’cause I was going to see my Dad. And that always felt good.
Twenty minutes later I was being shown into Dad’s facility.
When they locked Dad up and liberated him from the confining shackles of running a small town organized crime outfit, he poured his considerable energies into studying law. Since then, he’d used his time to petition for various allowances. Never for freedom, mind you. No Innocence Project for him. He knew he was guilty for all they’d got him for, and a whole shedload else as well, so he said he wasn’t going to perjure himself by lying about it to get out early. But he’d managed to convince the authorities that as a long-term inmate they’d be violating his Geneva rights if they didn’t knock out the wall between his cell and the next to expand his living space. Unlimited access to the recreation room had followed.
He was behind the pool table shooting eight ball with one of the guards when I arrived.
“Hi Dad,” I said, settling myself down in one of the comfortable sofas under the window and helping myself to a soda from the massive two-door fridge. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Not much, bellissima, not much,” he answered distractedly, lining up to pocket the black. I watched his broad, chunky back as he lined it up, silver curls teasing the collar of his black linen shirt and swanky black chinos pulling tight over his muscly butt. He had the body of the fishermen from whom he had descended - stocky, square, strong – and the savoir faire of the Milanese tourists he’d admired as a kid. “There’s Twinkies there too,” he called over his shoulder as he leaned down and eyed his target.
I’ve never been able to resist anything with a warning label, and I was gonna need my Twinkies intravenously to get me through saying sayonara for real to my beloved Marlboros.
Let alone all the other crazy shit that was going down.
“Bad luck, Clay,” Dad commiserated with the guard, as he expertly pocketed the black and ten bucks from Clay’s hand, slapping him on the shoulder. “Better luck next time, ay?”
Clay nodded glumly. “Hi Rania,” he said, with a quick gape of astonishment that I’d managed to scarf three Twinkies in the time since Dad made their presence known to me.
“Hi Clay,” I returned. “How much you lost to the old shark this week?”
“Seventy bucks,” he bit out grimly.
“Stop playing,” I suggested.
“I should.” Clay nodded in agreement. “I’ll leave you two alone. Be just outside.”
There are only half a dozen inmates in the county jail at any time. Dad says the only thing he really misses is women, but I suspect the guards turn a blind eye to lots of the goings-on in cell 9/10. Not that I want to think about it. It’s not some emotional baggage thing either, not some romantic hope that Mom and Dad might reconcile someday. I’ve never known them as a couple and quite frankly I find it hard to. But I know one thing: Mom and Dad were no Little Mermaid deal. Mom did not leave her ocean paradise and come live in Shitsville because she fell in love with some earth Prince. So I don’t care who he’s with, I just don’t want to know. I might be a mermaid. He might be a con. But he’s still my Dad and if there’s one universal truth in earth