“Stop digging!” I scream at Birdie. “There could be a dead body in there!”
“Don’t be so thick, Tessie,” she says with her spooky, wild-streaking laugh that always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. “The pile isn’t deep enough to hide a dead body.”
“It is if it got cut into little pieces!”
Dear Jesus, what the heck have I gotten us into?
I know better.
Right around the time summer started, a burly guy with MOTHER tattooed on his right arm showed up at Lonnigan’s Bar after closing time. I thought at first that Louise had sent the bruiser because she’d gotten tired of coming up to the bar to make sure Daddy wasn’t playing cards and that gal can suck the fun out of just about anything faster than one of those Hoovers sold by Horace Mertz. But it turned out this galoot, name of Hall, was sent by his boss, Mr. Three-Finger Louie Galetti, which explains why he has to have someone else do his dirty work. Daddy told Hall very politely after he burst through the door, “Sorry. I’m a little short. Next week for sure.” But Three-Finger Louie must’ve needed his money back ASAP, because that muscle man got the jump on the best fighter in the neighborhood and knocked him to the bar floor with a powerful right hook to his nose and then he emptied out the cash register. “Let this be a lesson to you, Tessie,” Daddy told me when he was patching himself up in the GUYS bathroom after Hall left with the dough he stole. “Whatever you do, don’t get in over your head.”
What he was trying to teach me that night was that I was supposed to be very careful not to let my sister and me get into too much hot water and I am having a very bad feeling that’s what I’ve done. I’m having so many grave doubts, in fact, that I’m about to cross out #2 on the list:
TO-DO
Take tender loving care of Birdie.
Solve whatever happened to Sister Margaret Mary for big blackmail or reward bucks.
Make Gert Klement think her arteries are going as hard as her heart.
Catch whoever stole over $200 out of the Pagan Baby collection box.
Practice your Miss America routine.
Learn how to swim.
Be a good dry-martini-making fiancée to Charlie.
Do not get caught blackmailing or spying.
Just think about making a real confession to Father Ted, before it’s too late.
I’ll do a 180 turn and tell Birdie I was dead wrong about what I heard and saw happening over here last night. That Louise’s newest “gourmet” dish she served us for supper yesterday—liver with green olive frosting—must’ve given me some kind of brain poisoning that made me see things that weren’t there. When my sister tells me, “Roger that, Tessie,” we can run to Charlie at the weeping willow tree, have a quick Mutual Admiration meeting, and take out some of the treasury money we keep hidden in the trunk of the tree. And after we pick up the chocolate-covered cherries offa Mr. Lindley’s grave—I sister-promised—we’ll have a visit with Daddy, and then go straight home and get the red Schwinn out of the garage. I’ll set Birdie on the handlebars and Charlie can hop on the back fender, and I’ll pedal us over to the Milky Way Drive-In. Even though we’ve just eaten breakfast, we can always make room for their “out-of-this-world” food. I’ll treat us to double Galaxy cheeseburgers and Pluto fries and we can slurp up a strawberry Mercury malt, three straws.
Yes, this is an excellent plan to keep us from getting in any deeper over our heads, because never in a million years would my almost-always-starving sister say, “No thanks, Tessie,” to a visit to “The Milk” with Charlie. On this I am 100% positive.
“Tweetheart?” I say to the pitiful kid who’s still kneeling in front of the leaf pile. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I got you all worked up over nothing. Louise’s olive liver musta poisoned my brain and made me imagine seeing a murder last night and . . . hey, speakin’ of food, I bet you’re starvin’ from all the climbing and runnin’ and leaf searchin’, and I mighta accidentally stepped on that peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich I brought for you, so whatta ya say we just call it quits and—”
“Tessie!” she jumps to her feet and shouts. “I found a clue!”
10
A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME