I thought about all of that while he started to trim my hair. Maybe it really was nothing more than a paranoid old man’s stories.
“What year did Prohibition end?” I asked.
He paused in his trimming and said, “Oh, let me see. Sometime during the Depression. Around the time we had the big earthquake here-1933.” The scissors went back to snipping. From what I could see in the mirror, he was doing a good job.
“The car was buried in 1958,” I said. “So I don’t know how it can have anything to do with bootlegging. And the people who were murdered were a young family. A man and woman in their early twenties, and their baby.”
He shook his head sadly. “Honey, I don’t like to think ill of Griff, who was always kind to me, and generous, even if he was a little odd. But the fact of the matter is, that kind of bootlegging would connect him up to some folks who weren’t very nice.”
The absurdity of talking about killers and gangsters as “not very nice” might have made me laugh if I hadn’t become caught up in wondering about the Ducanes possibly having mob connections.
He finished his work with the scissors and put them and the comb into a jar of blue liquid to sanitize them. He was using a big soft brush to dust the clippings off my shoulders when I asked, “Did Mr. Baer ever mention a place up in the mountains? Near Lake Arrowhead?”
“No. And I don’t think he ever went up there. He stayed in town. He didn’t like the cold, but then, that just might be something that was part of old age. When he was younger, he could have been a ski champ, for all I know.”
I thanked him both for the haircut and the information and promised I’d be back. I tipped him very generously.
First the Cliffside and then a big tip. I was walking around town as if I was in high cotton, as the Louisiana branch of the Kellys might have said. Ludicrous behavior for someone making an entry-level reporter’s salary.
But then again, what had all the money in the world bought the Ducanes?
36
“Y OU’RE LUCKY SHE DIDN’T BREAK YOUR NOSE,” IAN SAID, HANDING his brother an ice pack. “I can’t believe you let a chick do that to you.”
“Wasn’t her,” Eric said. He would have said more, told him to fuck off, that the one who had really hurt him was their former cousin, but speaking through his scraped and swollen lips was too painful. Eric didn’t think that wienie Kyle had landed all that many blows-he wasn’t even sure he had made contact more than once before that bitch hit him in the face with the handbag from hell-but there were places along his neck, shoulders, back, and legs that ached from whatever the fuck he had done. Eric never saw it, never even saw it coming. Hit him from behind, then let a girl finish his fight-like the wienie he was.
When the purse hit his face, his teeth had cut into his lips and the inside of his cheek. The corner of whatever the hell it was she had in that bag had struck his eye, and it was now nearly swollen shut. Planting his face in the asphalt hadn’t helped. His nose had stopped bleeding now, but it was tender and swollen, as was most of the left side of his face. His head throbbed.
“Man, your face is completely fucked up. You sure you aren’t going to lose any teeth?”
If Ian didn’t shut up soon, Eric was going to risk another set of injuries to make it as difficult for his brother to talk as it was for him.
As usual, though, Ian read his mood. He could always do that more quickly than anyone else. “Sorry, that was a shitty thing to say. If that asshole Kyle-wait, Uncle Mitch is right. He shouldn’t have ever had even one part of our dad’s name. I don’t know what to call him. He’s dead as far as I’m concerned.”
Eric managed something close to a smile. “Deadman.”
“Good one. Because he should have been dead a long time ago.”
Eric nodded slightly. Even that much movement of his neck caused excruciating pain.
“We are getting way too old for this physical shit, you know?” Ian said.
“No kidding,” Eric said. Guys in their early forties shouldn’t have to do this kind of thing. They both kept in shape, worked out, and spent time out at the firing range, but they hadn’t done this kind of job for Uncle Mitch in many years.
Uncle Mitch’s businesses had changed. For the last twenty years, there hadn’t been much rough stuff. Oh, every once in a while, Eric or Ian had to do a little collections work, but they seldom had to get physical. And Uncle Mitch hated to hear any report of that kind of action.
Uncle Mitch had wanted to be respectable now. He had a big thing about it. The Ducanes, the Linworths, the Vanderveers-that whole crowd had looked down their noses at Uncle Mitch. So Uncle Mitch was always on the climb, wanting to look right back down at them. Eric admired that about him. When he was a kid, Uncle Mitch owed that crowd money. Now he had more money than any of them.
For the past ten years, Eric and Ian had drawn a fat salary and had the titles of vice president in Yeager Enterprises, as Uncle Mitch’s biggest company was known. That meant they went around to his various businesses and kept people honest, voted the way he told them to at board meetings, ran little errands. Nothing too challenging.
Except for one other task, the one they were told was their primary job- to keep an eye on Warren Ducane. Make sure he didn’t go near any reporters. Come back and tell Uncle Mitch if he did anything out of the ordinary.
Ian and Eric used to wonder why Uncle Mitch didn’t just kill the miserable son of a bitch. Over time, Eric began to understand certain things. One was that Warren Ducane and Uncle Mitch were in some kind of standoff, and that if either one of them made a move, the other could do serious harm.
He knew better than to put Warren Ducane out of his misery, because Uncle Mitch enjoyed seeing that misery. Warren wasn’t the only one. There were these people in Las Piernas whom Uncle Mitch had never forgiven. Eric wasn’t even sure what they had done to Uncle Mitch, but he knew that Uncle Mitch was paying them back for something. Uncle Mitch wasn’t in a rush- he wanted them to suffer.
Uncle Mitch felt superior to all of them, but no one as much as Warren.
Eric had observed Warren for many more hours than his uncle had, and didn’t share his uncle’s complacency. He once told Uncle Mitch that he might have underestimated Warren Ducane. Eric would never forget the ranting and raging that had followed that-Uncle Mitch had a fire poker in his hand, and had threatened Eric with it. Ian had stepped in to protect him, and Uncle Mitch had hit him. That’s why Ian’s hair had a white streak in it-it grew that way out of the place where he had been hit.
For a time, Uncle Mitch had seemed to be right about Warren Ducane. Over the years, except for a little change in his manner after he visited Auburn Sheffield, Warren Ducane seemed to be a beaten man.
They all knew better now, didn’t they? And did Uncle Mitch remember Eric’s warnings? No. He berated Ian and Eric, blamed them for becoming bored out of their minds with watching a dull little wimp like Warren Ducane go through his dull little life.
Uncle Mitch always made it clear that he didn’t think they were smart. Maybe they weren’t as smart as his adopted traitor-but they weren’t stupid. They weren’t as interested in some of the business stuff as Uncle Mitch wanted them to be, but that didn’t mean they were dumb.
Uncle Mitch didn’t respect them, but he took care of them. It had been that way from the beginning of their lives. He wasn’t always an easy man to please, but he was there when you needed him. He was good at protecting them, and they did their best to return the favor. But he had younger guys on his payroll, and Eric wished one of them had been over at the Cliffside this afternoon instead of him.