Page 10 of Shadow Ticket

The Hollywood talkie Dracula opened last year in Chicago on Valentine’s Day, which happened to fall on a Saturday. April’s idea of a romantic date.

“I was thinking more like a candlelight dinner at the Villa Venice,” said Hicks. “You sure you want to go all the way into Chicago, considering what tends to happen there on Valentine’s Day—”

“Ha! I knew it, superstitious is one thing, Lunchmeat, but that kind of talk is just howling at the moon.”

“Come on, Cuban band, gondola ride out on the river, it’s the classiest rendezvous between Chicago and Milwaukee.”

“It’s a ritzed-up speak with a two-dollar cover.”

“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 twice during 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 later there’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 are so close…”

“Say, I can handle this big creampuff.” Dominic goes rushing in at Hicks. It doesn’t last long. Presently, Dominic is lying inert though breathing next to a beaverboard partition wall, which now has a dent from where he’s just been slammed into it.

“Seemed in pretty good shape,” Hicks pretending to flick blood from his sleeve, “you might want them to have a look at him down at County General, just to be sure.”

“You mind signing this release form for Don Peppino, he likes to see some proof we didn’t just go off someplace and roll a couple of frames.”

—

In Hicks’s experience, wide but not always educational, of a cross-section of womanhood in our time, most of them, he’s noticed, haven’t had much, if any, idea of how to fight.

Not in the grimly verbal married way, but more like physically grabassing, throwing real punches and kicks.

April has been a welcome exception, making Vumvum’s news especially saddening because no such amorous round-and-round is likely to be in the cards anytime soon for her with Don Peppino, who’s been known to take back-talk, even unwelcome gestures, very much amiss.

He’ll carry her off down the MKR Corridor to Little Cosenza, some love casinetto down there stupendous in its level of tastelessness, into a horrible domesticity that Hicks gets nauseous even thinking he might begin to think about.

Tongue-biting and gaze-lowering. Weekend after weekend, giant, labor-intensive social-hall lasagnas—Wisconsin lasagnas, with dead raccoon somewhere in the recipe, like the Delafield American Legion only more garlic and oregano possibly…

Happy Valentine’s Day. Vumvum is eager to add details a few days later when he and Hicks run into each other at Fahrflung’s Sporting Goods, down an alleyway from the interurban station at 6th and Michigan, Canoes, Tents, Camping Supplies, and in Vumvum’s case today, Submachine Gun Accessories.

Vumvum has just purchased a Cutts compensator or muzzle brake to keep his aim from drifting upward during lengthier bursts, “25 clams, but Don Peppino is off on one of his cost-cutting routines trying to save money on ammo. Thousand rounds a minute, nickel per round, it adds up, see.”

“From the presence or absence of a Cutts compensator,” as the Gumshoe’s Manual points out, “the alert operative can often gain valuable insight into the character of a Thompson user, though here, time being understandably of the essence, speed is recommended.”

Once a few years back in Waukesha County, Hicks, observing Vumvum chased by rival gang elements and headed his way like a runaway express train, stepped in pretending to be lost and looking for directions, allowing Vumvum to highball on into the custody of the sheriff’s department and only a little less leisure-time whoopee in his life, instead of becoming the next notch on the butt of somebody’s lupara.

For which Vumvum if not eternally grateful found himself from then on strangely unhomicidal when in Hicks’s company.

“He’s a lord of the underworld,” Hicks points out now, “you can’t tell me she’s with him of her own free will.”

“I just did,” Vumvum replies. “Could have somethin to do with Don Peppino’s got the biggest minghiuzza in the criminal trades, major league fungo stick, always in use and not just for practice pop-ups neither, you capeesh?”

Taking a few seconds to light up, “Useful information, Vumvum, to be sure, why hasn’t somebody mentioned this sooner?”

“Never know how dimensions that personal will go over with people. Reactions vary.” A strange capacity for sentiment has somehow found its way into Vumvum’s face, which Hicks up till now, being reluctant to look that close, has failed to notice.

“Goomara mentality,” angling his head before shaking it, “not for me to speculate. Been keeping a close eye but it don’t look like she’s tryin too hard to get away, even if Don Peppino deliberately lets her misbehave, so he can scold her for it later.

Not that she ain’t caught on to that, not much gets past her. ”

An uncomfortably throbbing patch of silence, which Hicks takes to be Vumvum’s unwillingness to discuss how much April might be enjoying herself with the ‘Ndrangheta heavyweight, who has considered often enough getting athletic with Hicks about it, though preferably not in person.

“Vumvum, seriously, how worried should I be about Twinkletoes?”

“Well, dancing is vertical whoopee, Boss, everybody knows that.”

“Education,” smacking Vumvum amiably upside the head, “ain’t it grand. Vumvum, now, total honesty, do I seem to you the violently jealous type?”

“Padrino, this far down the chain nobody gives ungazz about that emotional stuff.”