The first few “performers” flat-out stink. Rio Grande resounds with laughter and catcalls, but the singers shriek and mumble on, even as they are pelted with cherries and tortilla chips. I’m horrified at the raw cruelty, but it slowly sinks in that this is the whole gig here. These people know how terrible they are, and the louder the audience boos, the more they play to it.
Kendra’s mesmerized as if we’re watching the parting of the Red Sea, and not some three-hundred-pound guy singing “I’m Too Sexy….” Actually, he’s the only one this crowd seems to like. He gets a standing ovation, especially when he rips open the shirt he’s too sexy for. It brings the house down.
I try to put my arm around Kendra’s shoulders, but she’s totally rigid. I start to consider that this might be a bad idea. A local college girl is singing Motown—and she’s actually pretty decent—when I softly suggest, “Maybe we should get out of here.”
Kendra points to the stage. “Is she really that good?”
“I never said she was—” Then I realize the true meaning of the question. “Kendra, you blow her away.”
She takes a deep breath, combs her blond hair with her fingers, and straightens her blouse. “If I stink, I hate your guts for bringing me here.”
I get a warm glow. If the reverse holds true, she’s going to love me.
When Hannibal pointed his elephants at the Alps and yelled giddyup, he had the same look in his eyes as Kendra, marching over to that microphone.
She’s a showstopper. Well, not exactly, but nobody throws any fruit at her, and that’s a big deal with this crowd. She starts off nervous, but really loosens up, belting out everything from “What a Girl Wants” to “Stairway to Heaven.” By her third or fourth song, she’s picking up a core of fans. Remember, this place is also a bar. We’re not drinking, but everybody else is, and the crowd’s appreciation of the music seems to rise with their intoxication level.
“You’re a smash!” I crow.
She grabs my arm. “Get up here!”
“But I can’t—”
“I need a backup singer!”
Well, maybe Kendra doesn’t stink, but I do. I take a few direct hits from maraschino cherries, but nothing touches her. Highly selective abusers, this crowd.
We’re back at the table when in walks a tall cadaverous man in black slacks and turtleneck. I almost inhale my straw when I recognize the guy. It’s a good thing there’s music on because I think I scream. It’s Uncle Pampers.
The thought of Uncle Pampers in a karaoke bar kind of makes me want to laugh and be sick at the same time. He holds a special place in Dad’s organization. He doesn’t hang out with the other uncles. I’m pretty sure they’re afraid of him. Quite frankly, I think Dad might be too. That’s where the nickname comes from. If you open your door and see Uncle Pampers standing there, you—ahem—you get the picture. “I hope he’s got his Pampers on,” the uncles used to joke whenever he got sent to pay a visit to somebody.
At least, that’s Tommy’s version. I only talked to Dad about Uncle Pampers once, and he got pretty uncomfortable about it, as if we were discussing the birds and the bees. The official job description is “problem solver.” As in: “You got a problem, you call up your uncle Pampers, and he makes it go away.” I’ve also heard it as “troubleshooter,” with an ominous emphasis on shoot, although Tommy assures me that Uncle Pampers prefers to work more quietly. Mario Calabrese, for example, was strangled with the cord from his own Walkman while jogging. Naturally, the case remains unsolved. But if it’s true that Dad gave the order, the job was almost certainly carried out by Uncle Pampers.
Nobody ever said explicitly that the “problems” he solves are actual people. I kind of figured it out from the way the other uncles, their wives, and even Dad stay away from him. At family gatherings he plays with the little kids. I used to assume he loves children, but now I realize that they’re the only ones who can look at him without thinking about what he does to make a buck.
And here he is at Rio Grande. I shrink a little lower in my seat. The last thing I need is a friendly how’s-it-going chat with a professional killer. That’s a definite dating no-no—right up there with having an unconscious guy in your trunk. Especially when the date is with Kendra, whose father probably has a file on Uncle Pampers that’s even thicker than the one on Dad.
He takes a sip of his drink and steps up to the microphone. With each passing second, this night is turning into a comic opera of the absurd. Uncle Pampers singing? This I’ve got to hear!
Twangy guitar swells, and the Grim Reaper of the vending-machine business launches into a whiny, nasal rendition of an old country song called “The Lowdown Blues.”
A cocktail umbrella bounces off his nose, and I hold my breath, waiting for Uncle Pampers to perform the first-ever karaoke bar splenectomy. But he keeps wailing away. And because the music is so grating, it takes everybody a minute to realize how fantastic he is. He’s not just singing—he’s moaning, howling, lamenting, and yodeling. Yodeling! If somebody told me that either the moon was going to fall out of the sky, or Uncle Pampers would yodel, I’d stack all my chips on the moon. But here he is, putting on a performance worthy of Hank Williams himself. And not Junior. I’m talking about Hank Williams Senior!
When he finishes, Rio Grande rocks with thunderous applause. Uncle Pampers has pulled off the karaoke feat of the century. I’ll bet not a single soul in the building actually likes that kind of music, yet he won them over. I mean, he usually wins people over. But this time he didn’t have to threaten to kill them. Oblivious to the adulation, he returns to the bar to sip quietly at his drink.
Kendra’s face is pink with excitement. “That was awesome!” she raves. “Let’s go congratulate him!”
Uh-oh. “He seems like a pretty private person,” I put in quickly. “Maybe we should leave him alone.”
It takes a while for the place to get back to normal. Nobody wants to be the act to follow Uncle Pampers. Eventually some poor sap decides to brave the abuse, and things get rolling again. Kendra goes up a few more times, but I demur from my backup singing job—at least until Uncle Pampers leaves. He gives an encore performance of yodelmania before he takes off, singing a pathetic song about a broken-down pickup truck and a three-legged dog.
I breathe a sigh of relief once he’s gone.
It’s almost eleven when I finally signal our waitress. She shoots me a questioning look.
“We’re ready for our check.”
She seems confused. “It’s already been taken care of.”
I’m amazed. “By who?”
“The tall man who sings Hank Williams. Good tipper, too.”
All the way out, Kendra is on my case. “Why didn’t you tell me you know him?”
“Because I don’t,” I defend myself. “He’s just a guy who sometimes does—odd jobs for my father. I wasn’t even sure it was him at first.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I catch a glimpse of her reporter’s face as we head out to the parking lot. Either that or it’s the expression of someone who can spot a gangster a mile away after she’s just heard one yodeling.
Everything’s okay back in the Mazda, though. We fold readily into an embrace that’s become both exciting and familiar. “I had a great time, Vince,” she murmurs in my ear. “Thanks for making me have the guts to do it.”
“You were the hit of the show,” I assure her. Strictly speaking, she was only runner-up, but I’m definitely not in the mood to bring up Uncle Pampers again.
“Hey, what are you doing next Friday?” she asks suddenly.
“This,” I reply, kissing her.
“Seriously,” she laughs, pushing me away. “How about dinner at my house?”
They say when you’re in a car accident, there’s a split second where you know what’s going to happen, but you can’t do anything about it. That’s me. Agent Bite-Me’s dinner table is hurtling toward me at sixty miles an hour, and my foot can’t find the brake pedal.
She senses something is wrong. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that—you told your parents about me?”
“Of course. Well, my mom, anyway. My father’s been working a lot. I haven’t really seen him all that much. But they’re not stupid, Vince. They can tell I’ve been dating somebody.”
“Well, uh”—I’m grasping at straws—“do we really have to bring parents into it already? I mean we’ve only been going out for three weeks.”
She’s bewildered. “It’s not like we’re meeting at the caterers to pick out hors d’oeuvres for our wedding! It’s just dinner. My girlfriends come over all the time. What’s so different about this?”
For starters, your dad isn’t bugging any of their houses. “What we’ve got, Kendra—it’s going so great. I guess it’s just that I don’t want to mess with it. And bringing parents in might change things.”
She looks troubled. “What are you saying? You’ll never meet my parents, and I’ll never meet yours?”
“Of course not,” I protest, but in reality, I can’t see how it could work any other way. “Let’s keep it just our thing a while longer. Then our relationship will be rock solid, and we’ll be able to handle the pressures.”
Our thing. What an unfortunate choice of words. In Italian, “our thing” translates as cosa nostra.
She’s more than merely silent. She’s silent with extreme prejudice. In her eyes, I’ve just crossed a line.
“What?” I ask gently.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It’s like there’s something you’re not telling me. Like you have a secret life.”
I try to make a joke out of it. “Everybody has a secret life. At least everybody we pass in the car. Remember that nun who worked for the Mossad….”
My voice trails off. She’s not letting me get away with it. She’s really mad.
“Something’s not right. I don’t know if it’s you or me, but something’s messed up here.”
“It’s just temporary,” I plead. “When we’ve been going out a little bit longer, I promise this’ll be no big deal.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “But it’ll happen eventually, right? Dinner with my folks?”
“Oh, sure. Eventually.”
The next ice age is coming eventually, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“HEY, VINCE, HOW COME you never told me you got a girlfriend?”
I’m trying to check up on iluvmycat.usa, but Tommy’s hogging my computer. Ever since my mini lesson, he’s been hooked. Actually, I’m more impressed than annoyed. I never would have pegged my brother as the Web-surfer type.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say quickly. “We’ve only been dating a few weeks. Who told you? Did you bludgeon it out of Alex?”
“Nah,” he chuckles, “Uncle Pampers saw you and her at some burrito joint.”
“Uncle Pampers came here last night?” It’s only Sunday morning.
He nods. “Business thing.”
Unbelievable. The guy went straight from yodeling to doing business. Business!
Tommy notices the look of distaste on my face. “Take it easy, Eliot Ness. We just needed him to go with No-Nose to make a point with somebody. Friend of your buddy Jimmy Rat.”
My brother hasn’t shut up for two seconds about the Jimmy Rat thing. There he’s found a surprise ally in Ray. But while Tommy raves about how Dad’s gone crazy, Ray just thinks it’s bad business. I’m not so sure. Anthony Luca may be a lot of things, but he’s not stupid.
If there’s an undercover agent in the organization somewhere, maybe Dad thinks that throwing me into the mix might confuse him. After all, the vending-machine business is as organized as a Roman legion, complete with captains and soldiers and a chain of command. Turning loose a squeaky-clean seventeen-year-old civilian on an errand of mercy could mislead the investigation. Especially me, because the uncles never know quite what to make of me.
On the one hand, I’m an outsider, and that’s by Dad’s orders. On the other, I’m the boss’s son, which is as inside as you can get. Either way, they have to deal with me, if for no other reason than the fact that our house is like vending-machine headquarters, and Mom’s dinner table is the commissary. For good or ill, we’re doomed to tread the same real estate. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve padded barefoot down to the kitchen for breakfast only to find myself sharing the coffeepot with some uncle or soldier who hasn’t been to bed yet. And when my bleary eyes finally focus, I notice he’s holding an ice pack over his head where he’s obviously been hit by a pipe or a baseball bat. But we can’t talk about that because I’m “out.” So we discuss the weather or the Knicks game while we drink coffee, and he bleeds, and I ask myself, Is this really happening, or is it part of some weird dream directed by Fellini? God only knows what these guys think of me.
If there is an inside man, he’s already confused by my role. Sending me to collect from a deadbeat could be the perfect smokescreen.
More likely, though, Dad’s just letting me fool around. He thinks I’m unmotivated, so he wants to see what happens when I put my mind to something. It’s like when a farmer gives his kid a baby sheep or pig to take care of. Jimmy Rat is my barnyard pet, which seems totally appropriate as far as the guy’s personal grooming is concerned. I’m not sure exactly how it works on the farm, but I have a sneaking suspicion that those animals end up in the slaughterhouse along with all the others. Then the kids learn the lesson that the world can be a cold and ruthless place.
I hope that’s not the plan for Jimmy Rat and me.
Tommy stands up, and I take my place at the keyboard. “Don’t get me wrong, Vince. I’m thrilled that you’re finally getting some. When you blew off Cece, I thought you were—”
“Listen,” I interrupt, “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” Did Wally ever have this conversation with the Beaver?
The Web sites for New Media are all up and running, and some of them are starting to generate a handful of hits. Mr. Mullinicks assures us that most of the early action is from proud parents, aunts, and uncles. That explains why iluvmycat.usa is lagging behind some of the others—the only computers in the possession of my relatives are being sold off the back of a truck.
Much to Alex’s dismay, Fiona, who he now calls The Hated One, boasts the class’s top site, www.cyberpharaoh.com. She’s an ancient Egypt buff, which is kind of cool, I think. In Alex’s eyes, she’ll never be forgiven for not being an Alex Tarkanian buff.
“What a joke!” he snorts. “Do you have any idea how many Egyptology sites are out there?”
“Well, there must also be a whole lot of closet Egyptologists,” I reply, “because she got over a hundred hits in the first week.”
“I hope a pyramid rolls over on her,” he mutters. “Egyptology. Stick this in your sphinx.” (Obscene gesture.)
Misterferraridriver.com comes in a surprise second with sixty hits. I’m positive that not a single one of those originates from a person who actually drives a Ferrari. Judging by the writing on the bulletin board postings, I’d say the vehicle of choice among Alex’s constituency is a tricycle.
But I don’t have much to say about it, because thus far I’ve received a grand total of one hit. It’s from an eighty-five-year-old lady in Maryland. She’s not even technically a real cat owner, because her cat died over the summer. But that doesn’t stop her from telling Fluffy’s entire life story on Cat Tales. I’m not exactly the star of the class.
Until that Sunday. I log on to the Internet and call up iluvmycat.usa. I stare at the counter. Forty-seven.
Forty-six hits in one night!
Excitedly, I browse through my features. Cat Tales still stands at one with the message from the octogenarian. Nothing in Feline Friends Network. All the new action is in Meow Marketplace, where there are twenty-three new ads! Yeah, there are a lot of pet owners out there, but the ones on my site don’t seem to be a very loyal group. They’re either trying to get rid of their cats or looking for new ones.
I pull up the first ad:
I’m selling my third-favorite cat, Lady
Anne. She’s a real winner, pure gold.
$200—SG.
I frown. I’m not expecting Shakespeare here, but who’s going to buy an animal based on that? And why say she’s only your third favorite? That sounds kind of cruel to me. It certainly wouldn’t make me feel very good to find out I’m Mom’s third-favorite kid.
I call up another:
Who wants to buy a real show cat for only 300 bucks? Dakota Glory is a little inky, but he can high-five you—MT.
Inky? Does that mean a black cat? I keep going:
If you’re looking for a prime minister of a cat, you’ve come to the right place. Dynamico caught three mice last week. Only $100—AS.
A “prime minister” of a cat? I page down. They’re all like that. And the names! What kind of an idiot names his cat Motherlode or Under the Rainbow? Sure, Mr. Mullinicks warned us that we’d probably run into a few weirdos online. But on iluvmycat.usa everybody’s a weirdo!
I’m selling exactly two of my cats, Kensington and Scattered Showers. You’ve never seen such a couple of movie stars. They’re number one! $200 for the pair—CC.
I don’t want to be nitpicky, especially with something that’s so bizarre to start with. But how can two cats be number one?
Alex thinks I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. “Compared to the dweebs pretending to own Ferraris out there, your cat owners are pretty normal,” he assures me in class on Monday. “You should spend a few hours on misterferraridriver.com. I’ve never seen such a bunch of nerds in my life. You can picture their mothers ironing the pocket protectors of their short-sleeved shirts. I’ll bet most of them are nine.”
“At least you can explain yours,” I say. “My postings are surreal. You couldn’t make them up if you tried.”
He looks me squarely in the eye. “Maybe Kendra can help you figure it out.”