“That I remember,” Dorsey said, recalling a visit there while searching for the granddaughter. Girls in uniform trying to slip things past nuns in habits. “Thought those sorts of places were popular around here now.”
“Some are, I guess,” Mrs. Leneski said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “She works for one of the Predic family, he owns the place where she makes the sandwiches, waits on the table. The Predics, the whole family is no good.”
“Do they steal like the undertaker or cheat like the checkout girl at the supermarket?” Dorsey asked from behind his raised coffee cup. “Sorry, it had to be asked.”
Mrs. Leneski left her chair and went to the sink, turning her back to him. “She’s old and she’s crazy, that’s what you think. Like I think people are all out to get me.” She turned to face him. “I just know things, things and people. They’re up to something at that place Catherine works. Damned Predics. I’d go there myself and find out but I have this thing on my ankle. So you have to go.”
So you have to go, Dorsey reminded himself, cruising across Carnegie Street, checking for the address on the slip of paper Mrs. Leneski had given him. Thirty years you’ve been out of the army, and you’re still intimidated by anything that sounds like a direct order. “And another thing, she only lives thirteen blocks from work, and she takes the bus along Butler. Thirteen blocks and she pays bus fare, can’t walk to work. Wastes her money. You find out what’s going on at that place and get her out of there.”
Dorsey moved along Carnegie in the Buick, the brown brick of the homes and front porches giving away to the red brick of St. Kieran’s Church. Just past the rectory, he pulled to the curb and killed the engine, focusing his attention on the house bearing the address he was looking for, apparently transformed from a one-family residence into two apartments. Dorsey checked out the second-story windows where Catherine was said to live. Windows closed and curtains drawn despite the afternoon warmth, the place was unremarkable and Dorsey considered putting in some surveillance time but decided against it. It’ll get you nowhere, he thought, best that could happen is you fall into a nap and end up with a sore lower back. Better to get some questions answered first. He twisted the ignition key, rolled over the engine, and proceeded a few more blocks and through one last intersection. At the corner was a low-slung building fronted by a large yard done over in cement and brick, the local AOH club, the only marker a small sign tacked above the front door. A buzzer and card slot was mounted next to the doorjamb and Dorsey depressed the button. The door was opened by a short man wearing a bartender’s double-wrapped apron.
“Lookin’ for Danny?”
Dorsey said that he was and the man waved him into a small vestibule followed by a wide barroom with tables and matching chairs scattered across the floor. “Danny,” the bartender called to a far corner. “Guy here for you.”
At the corner table was a thin, older man dressed in gray work pants and a sport shirt, paging his way through the newspaper. On the tabletop was a can of ginger ale, a glass with cracked ice, and a freshly opened pack of Chesterfields. When the man raised his head of white hair, Dorsey saw the blue eyes and lean good features of the Sullivan clan, his mother’s people. The slow grin reminded Dorsey that this was one of the few who had managed to hold onto his original teeth.
“How’s things, Uncle Danny?”
“Calling me uncle, huh?” the man joked. “You must be in some kind of trouble. Better sit down and tell me.”
“Trouble? I imagine so,” Dorsey said, taking the seat across the table. “Just not sure what kind it might be.” Dorsey motioned at the Chesterfields. “Thought you gave them up.”
“I don’t smoke ’em,” Uncle Danny answered, pulling one from the pack. “Don’t even light them up. Just gives me something to do with my hands. I still have to pay for ’em, but I save money on the matches.” He toyed with the smoke for a moment. “Always good to see you, don’t get me wrong, but something must’ve brought you over here.”
“Had to take an old lady cabbage shopping.” Dorsey waived down the bartender, ordered two more ginger ales, and brought his uncle up to date on his afternoon.
Uncle Danny toyed with a Chesterfield. “Between 36th and 37th? Right on Butler?” He laughed for a moment. “Might be the old whorehouse.”
“There was a whorehouse there?”
“Not much of one,” he told Dorsey, “not that I was ever in there, let’s get that straight. But you’re saying this shop is just across Butler from the old high school?”
Dorsey said that it was.
Uncle Danny laughed. “That’s who told me about it, the kids at the school. Some of my neighbors’ kids went to school there, and kids, they pick up on everything. From what they tell me, they’d be in algebra or typing class, look out the window across the street, and they’d see some guy ringing the bell at a door. Not the storefront door, but the one next to it that leads to the apartments on the second floor, know what I mean?”
Dorsey sipped at the ginger ale and nodded for his uncle to go on.
“Anyways,” Uncle Danny said, “nobody answers the door but a window on the second floor opens up and a woman kind of a pokes her head out. From what I hear she was stripped to her bra, in good weather. If she recognizes the guy she sends down the door key on a cord, the guy unlocks the door and goes inside. Then the woman in the window yanks up the cord and key and they’re off to the races.”
“Can’t imagine Catherine being able to make a living that way,” Dorsey told him. “Haven’t seen her in more than few years, but still.”
“In that business, the level of the clientele determines the level of the talent.” Uncle Danny set down the unlit smoke. “There’re sad old men and horny boys that ain’t so choosey.”
“I just don’t see it,” Dorsey said, shaking his head. “Tell me about these people, the Predics.”
It was Uncle Danny’s turn to shake his head. “Some families, I just don’t know, the kids are wild. Can’t say it was the parents, the old man had a nice business doing cement work, and the mother was okay. Kids were another story. Maybe it’s the house they live in, as if the walls tell them to be nuts. All the boys, and there was a slew of them, they start out at the Catholic school, and by sixth grade they are tossed out to the public school. And high school, don’t even give it a thought. So, some dope and drink and then vandalism. And then burglary when they finally figure out that if you don’t just destroy property, but instead haul it away and sell it to someone, you can actually make some money.”
“Anything recent?”
“I’m sure there is, but I haven’t heard of it,” Uncle Danny said. “And if one of them has a lunchroom, he’s selling more than whole wheat sandwiches and sprout salads.”
Dorsey thanked his uncle and got to his feet, heading for the door.
“Better wait a second,” Uncle Danny called out, stopping him. “If this Predic boy is the one I’m thinking of, the two of you have an acquaintance in common.”
Dorsey turned. “How’s that?”
“The big ape you had trouble with a few years back, the one everyone calls Outlaw? He’s close with the sons. Remember him, right?”
“I remember.”
“You should — last time you shot him in the foot,” Uncle Danny said. “If you get the chance, do us all a favor and shoot him in the other foot.”
By quarter past nine, the key had made four trips from the second-floor window, attached to green electric wire and let out by Catherine Leneski. Dorsey was sure of it, despite the gray in her hair and the sag of her chin. While he watched there had been two couples with children in strollers, one young fellow carrying a toddler, and a young girl chasing a three-year-old. Each had knocked at the door, the window had been raised, and the key dangled. Each had gone inside for a short bit and then left, none with children.