Page 17 of Shadow Ticket
“Three on Saturday.”
“Where would you find that kind of money?”
“Twenty-six game, lucky couple of rolls.”
“Uh-huh, what was her name?”
“No, wait, I forgot, it was the dog races.”
“I don’t want your money, I want that silver screen as I share a romantic bucket of popcorn with the man who—or let me put it another way…” Suddenly looking nervous. Hicks had an idea why, though he wished he didn’t.
“Hmm, well, OK, but this picture is supposed to be kind of terrifying, so promise if you get scared you’ll come sit on my lap.”
So they rode into Chicago, and were spared any Outfit-related violence, but what there was was Count Dracula, big as a movie screen, once or twiceduring whose activities it was Hicks who considered jumping into April’s lap. By the time it was over she’d eaten six cubic feet of popcorn and was using his tie to wipe the butter off her fingers with.
“Romantic enough for you?”
“Just want to swoon,” April confirms. “Mmm, that Bela Lugosi, some kinda Hungarian oomph there, all right.”
“So Jimmy Cagney’s about to have his heart broken.”
“Hayseeds like you could learn something.”
“Bite your neck? I can do that, c’mere.”
“Hicks, you need more culture, a more Continental approach to life and love. At least find out what Bela’s putting on his hair,” and so forth.
William Powell, James Cagney, now this. Hicks figures he’s in for weeks of sighing, movie magazines gathering in uneasy stacks, and whispers of “Oh, Bela!” in her sleep.
Soon she is sending away to Johnson Smith down in Racine for a set of Glow-in-the-Dark Vampire Choppers, 35¢ postpaid. They prove to be less of a hit in the bedroom than over at Uncle Lefty’s, where no sooner does Hicks clip on the strangely radiant fangs than he’s buried in a rush of juvenile hilarity…
Though Hicks had been still hoping for the Villa Venice, they didn’t get much further that night than one of the no-name drink-and-dance joints out northwest, which was also where and how he finally got the official word about Don Peppino Infernacci, something Lino Trapanese has been hinting around about for the better part of a year now. The minute April heads for the ladies’ toilet, Don Peppino’s chief enforcer, Angie “Vumvum” Voltaggio, an infrequent shaver in a glossy suit known for a readiness to bring out his “ukulele” on any pretext and spray a pattern, here tonight hosting a small party of two dozen, blaming his loosened tongue on the Gaglioppo, blurts out what’s news to nobody, that April Randazzo is in fact the promised bride of evil, known locally as Don Peppino—and not only publicly dizzy about but actually preparing at any moment to go running off with her abductor. No kindly mob elder, more like a shark, brute force, no apologies. Dangerous. And what kind of dimwit does Hicks have to be that he doesn’t know that already?
—
Couple days laterthere’s a follow-up visit from Don Peppino’s boys. Being Wisconsin torpedoes, they go about their daily mischief with the innocent demeanor of farm kids just arrived in town, causing strangers they may have business with to confuse stolid with harmless, often with dismaying results.
“Yelling ‘get lost’ is often not the recommended course of action,” as it says in the Gumshoe’s Manual, so Hicks only raises his eyebrows in a friendly way.
“…put the bump on you? Not us, not our specialty. We’d have to go find and hire somebody for that, could take weeks. And the paperwork,lascia perdere.”
“This is just a friendly word to the wise.”
“Or in your case, the otherwise.”
“It’s about your social life.”
“A certain Bronzeville canary of your acquaintance.”
“I think he gets it.”
“On the other hand, yiz out shoppin for a wood kimono, maybe we could help.”
“Pink would look cuter on him, ain’t it.”
Having run into this once or twice, Hicks is hep that they’re trying to crank him up enough that he blows his top and goes after one of them, providing an excuse to bring out the hardware. Seeing he hasn’t been getting enough exercise lately, this begins, actually, not to look like such a bad idea. Nunzi, perhaps the more reflective of the two, seems at last to pick this up and gives his partner Dominic’s arm a warning tap.
“Maybe you’re startin to miss the accident ward again,minghiun, ’cause right now you aresoclose…”
